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I 

THE 

SANITAEY  CONDITION 

OF 

CITY  AND  COUNTRY 

DWELLING. HOUSES. 

BY 

GEORGE  E.  WARING.  JR., 

CpNSULTING  ENGINEER  FOE  SANITAKY  AND  „ 
AGRICULTURAL  WORK. 


SECOND  EDITION  REVISED., 


NEW  YORK 
D.  VAN  NOSTRAND  COMPANY 

23  MUBRAY  AND  27  WABBEN  ST8. 


COPYRIGHT,  1898,  BY  D.  VAN  NOSTRAND  Co. 


PREFACE 

To  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 


The  first  edition  of  this  booklet  con- 
sisted mainly  of  a  reproduction  of  two  pa- 
pers read  before  the  American  Public 
Health  Association  and  the  Public  Health 
Association  of  New  York,  in  1876.  These 
papers  have  been  re- written,  in  the  light 
of  the  advances  made  in  the  practice  of 
House  Drainage  since  that  date,  but  their 
form  has  not  been  changed  materially. 

The  paper  on  Country  Houses  led  to 
a  lengthy  correspondence  in  the  American 
Architect  and  Building  News.  This  corre- 
spondence was  reproduced,  originally,  as 
affording  the  best  presentation  of  my  own 
views  on  the  subject,  and  as  meeting  ob- 
jections which  were  likely  to  arise  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  had  given  it  only  cas- 
ual attention.  It  remains  unchanged  in 
this  edition  ;  but  it  has  acquired  an  added 
interest  in  the  light  of  investigations 


PREFACE. 

which,  since  the  date  of  the  original  publi- 
cation, have  led  to  the  recognition  of  the 
agents  which  accomplish  the  destruction 
of  organic  matter,  and  to  a  more  or  less 
complete  understanding  of  the  conditions 
which  may  favor  or  hinder  their  operation. 
Although  it  is  known  now  that  the  oxida- 
tion of  the  impurities  of  sewage  in  a  sur- 
face soil  is  a  bacter^l  jind  not  a  chemical 
process,  the  statements  made  as  to  the 
purifying  capacity  of  the  soil  and  the  rec- 
ommendations offered  for  the  treatment  of 
the  hypothetical  case  under  discussion 
need  no  revision. 

G.  E.  W.,  JR. 

NEWPORT,  R.  I.,  October,  1898. 


THE 

SANITARY  CONDITION 

OF 

COUNTRY  HOUSES. 


THE  sanitary  defects  of  the  average 
country-house  are  due  to  ignorance.  Had 
the  architect  who  built  it  been  stimulated 
to  learn  what  is  required  for  a  perfectly 
healthful  condition,  he  would  of  course 
have  been,  in  every  case,  vigilant  to  se- 
cure it.  Did  the  physician  know,  except 
in  a  vague  and  theoretical  sort  of  way — 
that  is,  did  he  fully  realize — the  degree  to 
which  the  ailments  he  contends  against, 
and  which  he  should  be  vigilant  to  pre- 
vent, are  diseases  due  to  removable  causes 
connected  with  the  construction  and  ar- 
rangement of  the  dwelling,  he  would 
insist  upon  a  reform. 

Did  the  householder  himself    know  the 


extent  to  which  his  own  efficiency  and  the 
health  and  lives  of  his  family  depend  on 
an  observance  of  the  less  obvious  sanitary 
requirements,  he  would  demand  that  both 
architect  and  physician  should  inform 
themselves  as  to  the  needs  of  his  house, 
and  should  secure  the  fulfilling  of  those 
needs. 

Fortunately,  the  crime  of  ignorance  is 
declining.  The  technology  of  the  plumb- 
er's art  and  the  fundamental  principles  of 
sanitary  engineering  are  more  or  less 
familiar  to  every  newly  fledged  architect, 
and  the  physician  has  discovered  that 
etiology  and  prophylaxis,  too  long  subserv- 
ient to  therapeutics — are  at  least  equal 
to  it  in  importance.  The  householder  him- 
self, if  he  be  of  the  more  intelligent  class, 
knows  that  obedience  to  hygienic  laws  is 
the  price  of  safety,  and  he  is  willing  usu- 
ally to  ask  and  to  take  advice  from  the 
priests  and  Levites  of  sanitation. 

By  far  the  greatest  number  of  country- 
houses  are  farmhouses,  laborers'  dwell- 
ings, etc.;  and  these  are  not  less  subject  to 
sanitary  criticism  than  are  those  of  the 


better  class,  though  their  defects  are 
mainly  of  a  different  character,  and  relate 
more  to  the  grounds  about  the  house  and 
to  its  water-supply,  and  to  the  condition 
of  its  cellar,  than  to  the  arrangement  of 
its  interior  drainage.  Indeed,  in  nearly 
every  case,  these  houses  have  no  interior 
drainage  at  all ;  and  such  reformation  of 
their  character  and  condition  as  is  needed, 
will  be  sufficiently  indicated  in  considering 
the  better  houses.  Unhappily,  so  far  as 
the  occupants  of  the  farmhouses  and  cot- 
tages are  concerned,  there  is  little  hope 
that  any  considerable  improvement  will 
soon  be  undertaken,  or  indeed  that  any 
thing  we  may  say  here  will  be  heeded. 

It  is  sometimes  hard  to  convince  the 
country  physician  of  the  older  type  that 
his  most  important  obligation  to  his  com- 
munity lies  in  a  supervision  of  the  condi- 
tions under  which  it  lives  ;  but,  until  this 
is  done,  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  waste 
breath  upon  the  average  members  of  that 
community.  We  may  accumulate  evi- 
dence as  to  the  fatal  effect  of  prevalent 
carelessness  and  filthiness  in  the  cellar, 


8 

and  in  the  soil  about  the  house,  until  we 
are  tired  of  making  quotations;  and,  for 
every  instance  that  we  bring  forward,  of  a 
death  from  typhoid  fever  traceable  to  the 
use  of  poisoned  well-water,  the  farmer 
will  produce  a  hundred  cases  of  persons 
who  have  always  used  water  from  wells 
standing  in  barn-yards  or  close  to  privy- 
vaults  or  cess-pools,  without  suffering. 

The  action  of  poisoned  water  is  less 
direct  than  that  of  a  well-aimed  rifle  j  and 
its  effect,  where  there  is  any  effect,  is 
slower  and  less  obviously  connected  with 
the  cause  than  in  a  case  of  poisoning  by 
arsenic.  We  can  hardly  hope  to  convinc*- 
the  common  man  of  his  error,  and  indue.- 
him  to  spend  money,  and  to  put  himsell: 
to  considerable  personal  inconvenience,  to 
reform  a  state  of  affairs  which  has  existed 
all  his  life-time,  and  which  he  believes 
to  have  answered  well  with  him  and  with 
his  fathers. 

To  his  mind,  typhoid  fever,  diphtheria, 
and  the  whole  list  of  zymotic  diseases,  are 
afflictions  sent  by  an  inscrutable  Provi- 
dence for  some  hidden  purpose  of  disci 


piine  ;  and  lie  believes  it  his  duty  to  bear 
meekly,  if  sorrowfully,  the  chastening  to 
which  he  is  subjected.  He  is  still  far  from 
accepting  the  idea  that  his  discipline  may 
have  for  its  direct  purpose  his  regeneration 
in  this  very  matter  of  hygiene.  In  their 
unvarying  operation  the  laws  of  health 
(which  are  not  entirely  inscrutable)  strike 
both  the  just  and  the  unjust,  and  these 
laws  are  disciplinary,  or  not,  according  as 
we  meet  their  requirements  with  intelli- 
gent obedience,  or  bow  blindly  and  ignor- 
antly  before  them.  Typhoid  fever  does 
not  come  to  us  as  a  punishment  for  Sab- 
bath-breaking, nor  for  profane  swearing, 
but  as  a  punishment  for  the  one  sin  which 
brings  us  within  reach  of  its  scourge — the 
sin  of  unwholesome  living.  Then,  too, 
sinners  though  we  are,  in  this  regard,  it 
touches  us  so  slightly — only  here  and  there 
a  case — that  we  are  led,  not  precisely  to 
run  the  risk  of  chances  which  we  appre- 
ciate, but  to  remain  placidly  unconscious 
thaf  the  law  is  in  operation  about  our  own 
houses,  awaiting  only  the  due  assembling 


10 

of  the  conditions  which  bring  its  action  to 
bear  upon  our  own  persons. 

The  great  mission  of  enlightenment 
began  its  effective  operations  with  the  ed- 
ucated classes  of  society.  Especially  has 
it  engaged  the  attention  of  the  two  profes- 
sions to  which  I  have  referred.  Within 
the  range  of  these  professions,  the  ques- 
tions of  healthful  building  and  healthful 
living  especially  lie.  From  above,  the  en- 
lightenment will  be  extended  downward, 
until,  in  some  millennial  future,  the  merest 
cottager  will  understand  the  degree  to 
which  his  health  depends  on  the  cleanli- 
ness or  filthiness  of  his  domicile. 

In  like  manner,  it  is  obvious  that  our 
efforts  to  secure  an  improvement  in  the 
construction  and  care  of  country-houses, 
must  be  first  addressed  to  the  more  in- 
telligent classes,  and  that  they  must  work 
their  way  by  example,  among  the  poorer 
and  the  less  informed  Let  us  consider 
therefore,  by  way  of  illustration,  the  case 
of  an  elaborate  country-seat,  built  with  a 
determination  to  secure  every  luxury  and 


11 

every  comfort,  every  convenience  and 
every  safeguard,  that  the  most  skilfully 
applied  modern  art  can  compass  j  a  house 
to  which  that  compound  adjective  so  dear 
to  the  American  heart  may  be  applied  in 
every  department  from  garret  to  cellar — 
a  house  where  everything  is  "first-class." 
If  we  examine  the  old  mansions  of 
our  grandfathers,  or  go  back  still  further, 
to  the  seats  of  the  nobility  of  past  centur- 
ies in  England,  and  compare  our  modern 
houses  with  these,  we  shall  realize  what 
enormous  strides  have  been  taken  in  the 
improvement  of  many  elements  of  our 
building.  Among  other  things,  the  mod- 
ern mind  has  at  last  fully  accepted  the 
fact  that  a  wet  cellar  is  dangerous,  and  is 
to  be,  in  all  cases,  and  under  all  circum- 
stances, avoided  or  abandoned.  We  are 
still  indulgent,  and  perhaps  not  very  im- 
properly so,  of  an  occasional  inroad  of 
storm-water,  which  subsides  within  a  few 
hours  ;  but  a  cellar  with  standing  water  is, 
at  least  very  generally,  felt  to  be  an  im- 
possible accompaniment  of  healthful  living. 
By  hook  or  by  crook,  we  manage  to  get  a 


12 

drain  away  from  the  lowest  point  of  every 
cellar  dug  in  soil  that  retains  water  after 
heavy  rains  We  understand  very  well — 
in  the  rase  of  the  better  houses,  perfectly 
well — the  importance  of  dry  walls,  at  least 
of  dry  interior  walls.  When  we  build  in 
brick  or  stone,  our  opposition  to  absorbed 
moisture  seems  to  stop  at  the  point  where 
it  is  no  longer  injurious  to  wall-paper  and 
paint ;  but  we  do  secure,  almost  univer- 
sally, by  the  intervening  air-space,  a 
separation  of  the  wall  next  to  which  we 
live,  from  the  wall  through  which  exterior 
moisture  penetrates.  We  have  learned 
how  to  warm  our  houses  more  uniformly ; 
and  we  realize,  in  far  greater  degree  than 
our  fathers  did,  the  importance  of  abun- 
dant sunlight. 

But  here,  I  fear,  so  far  as  health  is 
concerned,  the  improvement  of  our 
building  ceases ;  or,  as  we  pursue  our 
investigations,  we  come  to  a  point  where 
it  seriously  retrogrades.  In  the  matter 
of  ventilation,  our  better-built  houses 
are  often  very  'defective.  In  our  hot-air 
furnaces  we  burn  anthracite  coal,  separ- 


13 

ated  from  the  air  chamber  only  by  cast 
iron,  which  is,  especially  when  heated, 
extremely  porous  to  carbonic  oxide.  We 
thus  introduce  an  element  of  unhealthful- 
ness  throughout  the  whole  house,  which 
constitutes,  as  compared  with  the  influence 
o£  the  open  fires  of  our  ancestors,  a  very 
serious  defect.  These  influences,  affecting 
the  wholesomeness  of  the  air  we  breathe, 
are  serious ;  but  they  are  far  less  so  than 
is  our  miserable  system  of  house-drainage. 
Half  a  century  ago,  in  houses  of  the 
better  sort,  the  most  active  prejudice 
existed  against  the  use  of  any  form  of 
indoor  conveniences ;  and  in  spite  of  the 
often  dangerous  exposure  to  the  weather, 
and  of  the  universal  stifling  foulness  of  the 
out-house,  no  one  thought,  except  in  case 
of  serious  illness,  of  permitting  defaecation 
within  doors.  Partial  invalids  and  delicate 
persons  must  perforce  subject  themselves 
to  an  injurious  exposure.  The  objections 
to  this  old  system  were  extremely  grave, 
not  only  on  the  score  of  comfort,  but 
greatly  also  on  the  score  of  health.  The 
introduction  of  the  water-closet  marked  a 


14 

real  advance  in  our  apparent  civilization ; 
and  the  general  system  of  an  interior 
water-supply  and  drainage,  with  the 
agreeable  accessories  of  fixed  wash-bowls, 
baths,  laundry-trays,  butler's  sinks,  etc. — 
of  what  the  house  agents  call  "all  the  mod- 
ern conveniences" — have  made  life  easier 
and  more  luxurious.  In  certain  ways,  too, 
they  have  added  important  sanitary 
benefits. 

But  in  freeing  ourselves  from  the 
prejudices  of  our  fathers,  and  in  gaining 
these  marked  benefits,  we  have  exposed 
ourselves  to  dangers  which  are  all  the 
more  grave  because  of  their  hidden  and 
almost  universally  unsuspected  charac- 
ter. It  is  by  no  means  necessary  that  the 
introduction  of  modern  plumbing-applian- 
ces into  a  house  should  be  any  thing  but 
advantageous ;  but  unfortunately,  so  little 
is  popularly  known  of  the  sanitary  require- 
ments which  should  govern  the  work, 
while  the  influence  of  defective  works 
upon  the  health  of  the  household  is  of 
such  a  hidden  character,  that,  in  securing 
comfort  and  convenience,  we  have,  in 


15 

almost  every  instance,  introduced  a  real 
element  of  danger. 

We  leave  to  the  plumber,  who,  too 
often,  is  only  a  skilful  mechanic,  the  entire 
control  of  the  most  important  part  of  our 
house-building.  It  is  true  that,  in  the 
natural  development  of  the  art,  and  under 
the  stimulus  of  severe  criticism  by  engi- 
neers and  sanitary  inspection  companies, 
the  plumbers — of  the  better  class — have 
improved  their  methods  and  their  results 
greatly,  and  that  many  of  them  are  entire- 
ly competent,  and  honest  enough,  to  plan 
and  execute  well  an  elaborate  system  of 
plumbing.  At  the  same  time,  this  does 
not  relieve  from  responsibility  the  archi- 
tect who  builds  the  house  or  the  physician 
who  has  in  charge  the  preservation  of  our 
health  after  we  move  into  it.  Both  should 
qualify  themselves,  the  one  to  secure  and 
the  other  to  maintain  wholesome  surround- 
ings, by  adding  to  their  present  work 
the  most  essential  branches  of  sanitary 
engineering  and  sanitary  inspection. 

In  a  certain  sense,  the  sanitary  question 
reaches  into  a  field  where  there  is  mucft 


16 

uncertainty  and  speculation  ;  but  enough 
is  already  known  concerning  the  relation 
between  neglected  or  improperly  controll- 
ed filth  and  the  health  of  those  who  live 
subject  to  its  influence,  and  enough  is  also 
known  of  the  simple  means  by  which  all 
danger  may  be  avoided,  to  make  the 
prevention  of  diseases,  arising  from  this 
source,  practically  certain. 

Indeed,  the  effort  to  be  put  forth  re- 
lates far  less  to  the  instruction  of  the  ar- 
chitect and  the  doctor,  in  the  very  simple 
details  of  sanitary  improvement,  than  it 
does  to  impressing  upon  them  the  impor- 
tance of  applying  these  details  as  one  of 
the  very  first  of  their  professional  duties. 

The  precise  methods  of  causation,  and 
of  propagation  of  cholera,  diarrhoea,  dys- 
entery, typhoid  fever,  diphtheria,  cerebro- 
spinal  meningitis,  neuralgia,  and  the 
minor  range  of  malarial  fevers,  it  is  the 
province  of  the  physiological  investigator 
to  determine. 

The  understanding  of  these  questions  is 
not  essential  to  the  securing  of  healthful 
surroundings.  It  is  sufficient  for  us  to 


17 


know  the  undoubted  influence  of  neglected 
filth  in  either  initiating  or  propagating  all 
diseases  of  the  class  referred  -to,  and  the 
means  by  which  the  accumulation  of  such 
filth  may  be  prevented.  It  is  a  matter  of 
small  consequence  to  the  average  house 
holder,  who  cares  nothing  for  the  general 
sanitary  bearing  of  the  question,  whether 
typhoid  fever  is  caused  by  the  presence  of 
some  specific  organism  which  is  the  germ 
of  that  disease  and  of  that  alone,  or 
whether  it  is  a  modified  form  of  a  more 
common  bacillus,  which  has  gained  viru- 
lence under  certain  peculiar  conditions. 

He  does  care  very  much,  or  at  least  he 
would  care  very  much,  if  he  thought  any 
thing  about  it,  that  the  condition  of  his 
house  shall  be  in  every  respect  such  as  to 
insure,  beyond  question  the  perfect  safety 
of  his  family.  He  does  not,  it  is  true, 
realize  the  fact,  which  we  fully  appreciate, 
that  his  costly  and  finely  finished  water- 
works are  a  source  of  danger.  He  has 
trusted  to  his  skilful  architect  to  make 
sure  that  he  is  guarded  against  unhealth- 
ful  influences  from  this  source,  as  effect- 


18 

ively  as  lie  is  guarded  against  exposure 
to  the  weather.  He  has  no  time  to  devote 
to  this  part  of  his  work ;  but  he  feels  he 
has  given  it  into  hands  fully  competent  to 
direct  it,  and  he  takes  no  further  thought 
or  trouble  about  it. 

Unfortunately,  so  far  as  the  question  of 
health  is  concerned,  he  may  have  trusted 
the  work  to  an  artist,  rather  than  to  a  sani- 
tarian j  for  the  architect,  however  compet- 
ent to  plan  the  general  arrangement  of  the 
house,  and  to  make  it,  without  and  with- 
in, beautiful,  attractive,  comfortable,  and 
convenient,  is — like  the  average  owner — 
too  often  either  ignorant  of  or  indifferent 
to  the  requirements  of  the  sanitary  laws, 
as  recently  developed. 

The  owner  takes  possession  of  his  new 
home,  and  subjects  his  family  to  unseen 
and  unsuspected  influences,  which  are 
quite  likely,  sooner  or  later,  to  manifest 
themselves  in  one  form  or  other  of  ill- 
health.  He  then  calls  to  his  assistance  a 
physician,  who,  perhaps,  has  applied  him- 
self far  more  to  the  art  of  healing,  than  to 
the  art  of  prevention.  In  the  slight  ail- 


19 

ment,  or  in  the  grave  sickness  with  which 
he  has  to  deal,  he  is  skilful,  useful,  and  ef- 
ficient ;  but  surely,  physicians  themselves- 
will  confess  that,  as  a  class,  they  too  sel- 
dom seek  for  the  cause  of  ill-health  in 
conditions  which  are  so  universal  among 
their  patients,  and  which  obtain  to  such  a 
degree  in  their  own  homes,  that  they  are 
apt  to  be  disregarded.  He  naturally  looks 
to  some  unusual  condition,  or  to  some  un- 
usual exposure. 

Indeed,  it  is  hard  to  realize  that  condi- 
tions under  which  the  human  machine  so 
generally  works  perfectly  and  easily,  may, 
under  certain  circumstances,  become  the 
very  conditions  for  the  causation  of  dis- 
eases. If  we  can  get  doctors  and  builders 
to  realize  the  absolute,  vital  importance  of 
controlling  the  conditions  under  which  we- 
live,  we  shall  have  done  our  best  work. 
Mr.  Brown  and  Mr.  Jones  and  Mr.  Robin- 
son— practical  men,  engrossed  in  the  man- 
agement of  their  affairs,  and  with  a  long- 
cherished  antipathy  to  theory  and  innova- 
tion— will  pay  very  little  attention  to  what 
we  may  say,  or  to  any  thing  we  may 


20 

write  ;  but  they  will  listen  to  the  advice  of 
their  physicians,  and  in  building,  they  will 
follow  the  least  sanitary  suggestion  of 
their  architects.  Constant  dropping  will 
wear  away  even  the  stones  of  their  indif- 
ference ;  and  we  shall,  in  time,  secure  a  ref- 
ormation of  the  whole  community.  But 
our  earnest  effect  is  surely  to  be  produced 
by  our  influence  over  their  profession  a! 
advisers,  who  will,  I  trust,  not  misappre- 
hend the  spirit  in  which  we  venture  to  re- 
mind them  of  this  vital  and  too  little 
heeded  element  of  their  duties. 

Let  us  come  now  to  the  specification  of 
our  charge  against  the  quasi-modern 
country-house.  It  stands,  we  will  suppose, 
upon  nearly  level  land  of  a  nearly  imper- 
vious character ;  but  ample  provision  has 
been  made  for  the  drainage  of  its  cellar. 
Not  far  away  from  it,  are  cisterns  and  a 
well,  each  of  which  is  in  communication 
with  the  force-pump  in  the  kitchen.  This 
is  provided  with  a  twin  cock  by  which 
water  may  be  drawn  from  one  or  from  the 
other  at  pleasure.  Under  the  roof  is  a 
large  tank,  holding  more  than  a  day's  sup- 


21 

ply ;  and  this  filled  by  the  force-pump,  fur- 
nishes all  of  the  water  needed  for  constant 
tap  at  every  point.  Near  the  middle  of  the 
house,  one  above  the  other  on  the  different 
floors  are  placed  the  bath-rooms  with 
water-closets  and  stationary  basins — in  the 
middle  ot  the  house,  to  be  safe  from  the 
^'rost  of  more  exposed  positions.  The  at- 
tempted ventilation  of  these  rooms  is  often 
C'-ily  by  a  window  into  a  closed  well,  or 
through  a  small  register  in  the  wall,  open- 
ing into  a  small  rough  flue  in  the  chimney, 
throttled  from  bottom  to  top  with  project- 
ing bricks  and  lumps  of  mortar.  The  real 
ventilation  is  through  the  constantly  open 
doorway  into  the  interior  passages  of  the 
house.  In  each  bed-room,  or  in  a  closet 
attached  to  each  bed-room,  there  is  a  sta- 
tionary wash-basin,  with  its  supply  of  hot 
and  cold  water.  Under  the  staircase  in 
the  main  hall,  and  often  with  no  ventila- 
tion at  all,  are  the  conveniences  of  the 
master  of  the  house  himsolf .  The  butler's 
pantry  has  a  sink  connected  with  the  main 
outlet-drain  by  a  generous  pipe.  The 
kitchen  sink  has  the  same  connection,  and 


22 

so  have  the  laundry -trays,  which,  together 
with  the  servants'  closet,  are  often  near 
the  level  of  the  cellar-bottom — near  the 
zero  point  of  the  drainage  system. 

The  house  has  been  built  by  contract ; 
and  a  plumber,  whose  specification  has  re- 
lated chiefly  to  the  weight  of  pipe  that  he 
shall  use,  and  to  the  character  of  finish  of 
the  basins  and  bowls,  and  their  faucets 
and  plugs,  has  been  left  to  the  exercise  of 
his  own  discretion  as  to  the  arrangement 
of  all  the  hidden  parts  of  the  work.  His 
job  is  a  satisfactory  one,  if  the  tubs  and 
trays  and  sinks  and  basins  have  the  prop- 
er neat  look,  and  if  an  abundance  of  water 
is  everywhere  supplied,  and  everywhere 
flows  readily  away.  For  an  outlet  he  has 
been  provided  with  two  cesspools  ;  the  first 
one,  tightly  cemented,  has  a  trapped  over- 
flow ;  the  second,  receiving  the  overflow  of 
the  first,  is  built  with  uncemented  walls  ; 
with  a  view  to  the  percolation  of  its  con- 
tents into  the  soil. 

For  a  time  everything  works  well  j  the 
clean  new  outlet-pipes  perform  their  office 
satisfactorily,  and  the  clean  soil  about  the 


23 

leaching  cesspool  absorbs  the  escaping 
liquid  readily  The  house  is  acceptable 
in  every  way;  and  its  happy  owner  con- 
gratulates himself  that  he  has  secured  all 
that  modern  art  and  knowledge  can  give 
him. 

Let  us  examine  this  house  after  it  has 
been  a  few  years  in  occupation,  with  a 
view  to  studying  its  actual  sanitary  con- 
dition. We  will  disregard,  as  foreign  to 
our  immediate  subject,  the  flood  of  injuri- 
ous carbonic  oxide  which  its  registers 
pour  into  its  interior,  and  the  said  lack  of 
ventilation  which  the  substitution  of  the 
furnace,  for  the  open  fire,  has  inflicted. 
We  will  say  nothing  of  the  pressure  of 
soil-water  against  the  absorbent  cellar- 
wall,  nor  of  the  damp  emanations  from 
the  undrained,  heavy  ground  around  the 
house.  Let  us  confine  ourselves  only,  and 
strictly,  to  the  questions  of  water-supply 
and  drainage. 

The  well,  although  perhaps  not  very 
near  the  leaching  cesspool,  and  the  now 
foul  soil  surrounding  it,  may  get  its  water 
through  some  stratum  of  gravel  which 


24 

carries  the  ooze  of  this  cesspool;  or  it 
may  penetrate  a  permeable  stratum,  or  a 
seam  in  the  underlying  rock,  which  brings 
it  into  communication  with  other  cesspools 
or  privy-vaults  far  or  near.  These  impur- 
ities are  not  perhaps  enough  to  produce 
an  obvious  effect,  while  the  water  in  the 
well  is  high,  and  holds  back  the  water  in 
the  soil  as  the  land- water  in  the  beach 
holds  back  the  salt  tide ,  but,  when  the 
supply  fails,  in  time  of  drought,  then  the 
demand  on  the  well  is  replaced  by  a  flow- 
ing-in  from  the  foul  earth,  and  the  impur- 
ities are  concentrated  to  a  dangerous 
degree  Or  perhaps  the  dejections  of  a 
patient  ill  with  typhoid  fever,  or  other 
disorder  of  the  bowels,  have  entered  the 
stream  oozing  from  the  cesspool  to  the 
well.  In  either  case,  disease  may  follow. 
Warned  by  the  frequent  reports  of  dis- 
eases originating  in  this  way,  the  master 
of  the  house  has  given  strict  and  frequent 
orders  that  under  no  circumstances  shall 
water  from  the  well  be  used  except  for 
cooking  j  but  some  of  the  inmates,  the 
servants  especially,  preterring  the  spark- 


ling  water  of  the  well  to  that  of  the  cis- 
tern, bring  the  pump  into  communication 
with  the  former;  and  now  and  then  the 
whole  supply  of  the  house,  for  a  longer  or 
shorter  time,  is  taken  from  this  source. 
Indeed,  if  there  is  a  well  in  communica- 
tion with  the  house-supply,  it  is  simply 
impossible  to  prevent  the  use  of  its  water 
from  time  to  time. 

The  tight  cesspool  into  which  the  drain- 
age of  the  house  discharges  is  of  course 
hermetically  sealed,  that  there  may  be  no 
possibility  of  its  emanations  tainting  the 
air.  It  is  connected  with  the  outlet  of  the 
soil-pipe  by  the  best  vitrified  pipe,  care- 
fully laid.  This  pipe,  for  part  of  its 
course,  runs  through  soil  that  has  been 
excavated  and  refilled  at  the  time  of  build- 
ing ;  through  soil,  that  is,  which  is  sure  to 
settle  as  time  goes  on,  bringing  the  weight 
ot  the  whole  mass  lying  above  the  pipes 
so  to  bear  upon  them  as  quite  surely  to 
move  them  enough  to  open  their  joints, 
allowing  more  or  less  of  their  contents  to 
soak  away  into  the  ground.  Sooner  or 
later  this  leakage  penetrates  the  founda- 


tion  walls,  and  taints  the  air  of  the  cellar. 

A  strong,  well-constructed  four-inch 
soil-pipe  descends  from  the  trap  of  the 
highest  water-closet,  usually  in  a  straight 
line,  to  the  ceiling  of  the  cellar,  and  passes 
in  a  straight  course,  and  with  a  regular 
descent,  to  the  point  of  outlet  It  has 
been  securely  strapped  to  the  floor -beams 
of  the  cellar,  making  it  quite  certain  that 
a  deflection  in  the  main  floor  of  the 
house,  of  even  an  eighth  of  an  inch,  will 
tear  it  loose  from  its  attachment  with  the 
closet,  and  leave  a  little  crevice  for  the 
escape  of  its  gases,  and  of  those  formed 
in  the  cesspool. 

The  importance  of  ventilating  the  soil 
pipe  having  been  recognized,  a  one  and 
one-half  inch  lead  pipe,  leading  from  its 
highest  point,  has  been  carried  out  through 
the  roof,  closed  over  at  the  top  to  prevent 
the  admission  of  obstructions,  and  perf  or 
ated  with  a  dozen  little  holes  to  giv.-- 
egress  to  the  pent-up  gases.  This  is  not 
cent  Ration  :  it  is  only  venting,  only  th^  re 
lieviiig  of  pressure,  —  an  important  office, 
but  bv  no  means  a  sufficient  one. 


27 

The  closets  on  every  floor  are  of  the 
"  washout "  type,  shallow  in  seal ;  or — too 
often  —  of  that  ghastly  foul  sort  which 
holds  in  a  lower  un ventilated  chamber 
nearly  all  that  is  admitted  to  them,  save 
the  water  alone,  until  the  solid  matters,  by 
decomposition,  are  enabled  to  pass  away 
in  a  stream  which  was  insufficient  to  flush 
them  away  as  solids.  The  traps  of  the 
lower  closets — too  little  air  being  supplied 
through  the  small  veil  ting-holes  above  the 
roof — are  often  emptied  by  siphon  action, 
where  a  strong  flow  is  rushing  through 
the  pipe  from  the  emptying  of  a  bath  on 
a  floor  above. 

To  economize  the  work,  or  because  no 
convenient  course  for  a  ventilating  pipe 
can  be  found,  wash-basins  and  other  fix- 
tures are  set  frequently  on  long  "  dead- 
ends "  of  nearly  horizontal  pipe,  each  a 
retort  for  the  manufacture  of  foul  and 
poisonous  gases,  which  have  no  means  of 
escape,  save  through  the  fixture,  into  the 
house,  when  the  seal  of  the  protecting 
trap  is  broken  by  siphonage,  as  is  quite 
likely  to  occur. 


28 

In  time,  all  the  foul  contents  of  the 
cesspool,  and  the  foul  slime  of  the  soil 
and  waste-pipes,  having  been  for  years 
producing  acrid  gases,  the  leaden  traps 
under  the  closets,  and  the  horizontal  lead- 
en connection-pipes  have  become  more  or 
less  honeycombed  j  and  here  and  there 
openings  have  appeared  in  the  pipes. 
These  being  in  their  upper  sides,  where 
the  usual  plumber's  inspection  for  leakage 
does  not  detect  them,  they  remain  un- 
suspected, and  they  go  on  year  after  year 
pouring  out  into  the  house  their  poisonous 
exhalations. 

The  influence  of  even  very  small  open- 
ings of  this  sort  is  far  greater  than  would 
be  believed.  I  was  told  of  a  household  in 
New  York  which  had  long  been  a  reliable 
source  of  income  to  its  attending  physi- 
cian, Upon  his  death,  a  younger  doctor, 
an  enthusiastic  sanitarian,  succeeded  him. 
He  soon  became  convinced  that  the  illness 
that  had  so  long  prevailed  was  due  to  em 
aviations  from  the  drainage-pipes  of  the 
house.  Plumbers  were  employed  to  make 
a  thorough  inspection,  and  they  reported 


29 

everything  in  perfect  order.  The  cases 
of  disease  kept  occurring ;  and  a  sanitary 
inspector  from  the  Board  of  Health  exam- 
ined the  house,  and  found  no  defect.  The 
character  of  the  recurring  ailments  indi- 
cated so  clearly  a  foul  drainage  cause,  and 
no  other,  that  the  physician  finally  applied 
himself  to  a  minute  inspection  of  every 
part  of  the  work. 

On  the  waste-pipe  under  a  wash-basin 
in  a  room  communicating  with  the  nursery, 
he  detected  a  very  slight  oozing  of  moist- 
ure, so  slight  that  he  did  not  feel  sure  that 
it  existed  until  he  found  that  it  moistened 
tissue  paper  laid  over  the  spot.  The  most 
rigid  scrutiny  developed  no  other  leak. 
This  pipe  was  taken  out,  and  a  new  one 
substituted ;  and,  although  he  or  his  pre- 
decessor had  been  called  to  attend  some 
member  of  this  family  almost  weekly,  for 
a  dozen  years  before,  he  was  not  called 
again  for  eighteen  months — and  then  only 
because  of  the  stork. 

If  any  thing  is  certainly  known  with 
reference  to  the  house-drainage  question, 
it  is  that,  in  an  unvehtilated  system  of 


30 

pipes,  the  foul  matters  which  they  contain 
enter  into  a  putrefactive  decomposition 
which  produces  poisonous,  or  at  least  in- 
jurious, gases  j  and,  if  any  thing  is  clear 
to  the  common  comprehension,  it  should 
be  that  pipes  of  a  corrosible  material— like 
lead — made  by  human  hands  and  subject 
to  the  defects  of  all  human  work,  contain- 
ing, day  and  night,  corrosive  and  injurious 
gases  of  this  character,  are  dangerous  in- 
mates of  any  inhabited  house. 

Not  only  do  these  gases  find  their  es- 
cape through  defective  joints,  through 
perforations  of  old  pipes  which  they  them- 
selves have  destroyed,  and  through  traps 
whose  sealing-water  has  been  sucked  out 
by  a  flood  rushing  past  them  in  the  soil- 
pipe;  but  they  have,  as  has  been  clearly 
shown  by  the  experiments  of  Dr.  Fergus 
of  Glasgow,  the  power  of  passing  almost 
unretarded  and  unchanged  through  the 
water  seal-traps  upon  which  we  have  so 
long  depended  with  confidence. 

Given  the  cesspool  and  the  soil-pipe 
charged  with  injurious  air,  it  is  simply  im- 
possible that,  under  our  ordinary  methods 


31 

of  arrangement,  this  air  can  be  prevented 
from  mingling  with  that  of  our  imperfectly 
ventilated  sleeping-rooms  and  living-rooms. 
Every  safeguard  that  modern  experience 
has  suggested  should  be  applied  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  the  system,  to 
make  sure  that,  whatever  may  be  the 
character  of  the  aeriform  contents  of  the 
pipes,  they  shall  be  strictly  barred  from 
escape  into  the  house,  and  that  every 
means  shall  be  adopted  to  cause  their  es- 
cape into  the  free  air  above  it. 

Not  only  this,  but  every  means  should 
be  taken  to  prevent  the  formation  of  these 
gases,  and  thus  to  gain  the  double  security 
of  their  non-existence  in  their  worst  formr 
and  against  their  entering  our  houses  in 
their  modified  form. 

And,  first,  for  the  prevention :  Poison- 
ous sewer-gas  is  a  product  of  the  obstruct- 
ed decomposition  of  organic  matter  in  the 
absence  of  light  and  of  a  sufficient  supply 
of  oxygen.  In  its  most  dangerous  form  it 
is  believed  to  have  but  little  odor. 

If  the  decomposition  takes  place  with 
exposure  to  a  sufficient  supply  of  common 


32 


air  to  furnish  the  oxygen  needed  for  a 
more  complete  decomposition,  the  gases 
produced,  although  often  more  offensive 
in  their  odor,  are  not  only  less  dangerous 
to  health,  but  the  more  thorough  decom- 
position is  believed  to  be  accompanied  by 
a  destruction  of  the  germs  of  disease. 
These  gases  have  in  a  much  less  degree, 
if  they  have  it  at  all,  the  power  of  decom- 
posing lead  pipes.  In  .other  words,  this 
worst  enemy  of  those  who  live  in  modern 
houses  may  be  entirely  or  quite  disarmed 
by  the  simple  means  of  supplying  common 
air  to  all  parts  of  the  drainage  system. 

To  provide  this  immunity,  so  far  as  the 
main  artery  of  our  works  is  concerned,  it 
is  quite  necessary  to  substitute  for  the  pal- 
try vent-pipe  so  often  used,  a  pipe  of 
the  full  size  of  the  soil-pipe  itself,  running 
with  the  least  and  the  fewest  angles  pos- 
sible, quite  up  through  the  top  of  the 
house.  We  must  also  admit  at  the  lower 
end  of  the  pipe,  a  sufficient  supply  of  air 
— as  copious  as  the  danger  of  freezing  in 
winter  will  allow — to  feed  the  suction,  and 
thus  keep  up  a  good  circulation  through- 


33 

out  the  whole  length  of  the  pipe.  The 
effect  of  this  ventilation  should  be  made 
to  extend  as  far  as  possible  throughout 
the  branches  of  the  system ;  and  with  a 
view  to  this  the  water-traps,  which,  al- 
though they  are  not  the  most  effective  ap- 
pliances in  the  world,  are  still  sufficiently 
useful  to  be  retained,  should  be  placed  as 
near  as  possible  to  the  waste  outlets  which 
they  are  to  protect.  Where  the  outlet  of 
a  wash-basin,  for  example,  is  untrapped 
until  the  water-seal  of  a  distant  closet  is 
reached,  it  becomes  in  time  smeared  for 
its  whole  length  with  the  accumulated 
soap  and  filth  of  repeated  ablutions  ;  and 
these,  although  they  are  not  what  we  rec- 
ognize as  fecal  matters,  are  still  organic 
matters  of  the  same  chemical  character, 
and  they  produce  in  their  decomposition, 
although  in  much  less  quantity,  the  same 
sort  of  gases. 

Let -every  trap,  then,  be  as  near  as  pos- 
sible to  the  beginning  of  each  waste-pipe, 
and  let  the  main  soil-pipe  be  entirely  un- 
trapped, so  that,  as  far  as  may  be,  every 
outlet  drain  in  the  house  shall  be  in  free 


34: 

Communication  with  a  thoroughly  ventila- 
ted main  channel.  This  secured,  we  may 
rest  content  in  the  belief  that,  so  far  as 
lies  in  our  power,  we  have  prevented  the 
formation,  anywhere  within  our  drainage- 
system,  of  gaseous  emanations  which  can 
be  injurious  to  health. 

The  next  step  is  to  make  sure  that 
while  we  have,  so  far  as  is  possible,  disarm- 
ed our  concealed  but  ever-present  enemy, 
we  bar  every  avenue  to  his  nearer  ap- 
proach. He  may  perhaps  no  longer  lie 
dangerous:  but  we  can  never  be  quite 
sure  of  him,  and  he  would  be  an  offensive 
and  disagreeable  visitor.  As  a  first  step, 
in  the  place  of  strapping  our  soil-pipe  to 
the  beams  of  the  cellar  ceiling,  let  us  set 
a  stout  post,  bearing  upon  a  firm  founda- 
tion, directly  under  its  bend,  and  so  pre- 
vent the  possibility  of  its  settling  a  single 
hairs  breadth.  In  this  way  we  may  keep 
a  well-made  joint  with  the  water-closet 
trap  perfectly  tight.  As  a  next  step,  we 
must  either  abandon  all  of  our  plumbing 
appliances,  save  only  the  necessary  water- 
closets,  and  return  to  the  old  basin  and 


35 

pitcher,  and  the  sponge  bath  or  we  must 
provide  for  the  absolute  and  continuous 
sealing  of  every  overflow  and  waste-pipe. 
The  ordinary  water  seal  is  a  trap  in 
more  senses  than  one.  Dr.  Fergus  found 
all  gases  with  which  he  experimented  to 
pass  freely  through  its  sealing  water,  am- 
monia passing  through  and  reacting  upon 
litmus  paper  in  fifteen  minutes.  Further- 
more, in  cases  where  the  trap  is  not  fre- 
quently used,  the  evaporation  of  the  seal- 
ing water  leaves  it  open  for  the  passage 
of  air  from  the  drain  directly  into  the 
rooms.  These  defects  are  constantly 
present,  even  in  the  case  of  waste-pipes 
which  are  not  subjected  to  pressure  from 
the  confining  of  their  gases.  Wherever 
there  is  such  pressure,  the  evil  is  of  course 
greatly  aggravated. 

The  unquestioned  advantages  of  a  free 
^upply  of  pure  water  in  wash-bowls  and 
bath-tubs  on  every  floor  of  the  house,  can 
be  safely  secured  only  by  some  system 
which  shall  overcome  their  great  defect, 
which  far  outweighs  their  advantages — 
the  defect  of  affording  a  possible  inlet  to 


sewer-gas  into  the  interior  of  the  house. 
As  at  present  constructed,  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  there  is  hardly  a  butler's  sink,  or  a 
b'ath-tub,  or  a  wash-bowl  in  use,  which  is 
not  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  subject  to 
this  criticism. 

The  only  absolute  safety  is  to  be  sought 
in  supplying  a  self-closing  stop-cock  to 
every  waste-pipe  or  overflow-pipe,  so  ar- 
ranged that  it  can  be  kept  open  only 
while  it  is  actually  held  open  by  the 
hand.  It  is  unnecessary  to  say,  however, 
that  siH-h  an  arrangement  would  be  ex- 
tremely inconvenient.  Traps  are  made 
which  resist  siphonic  action,  which  contain 
a  body  of  water  too  large  to  be  lost  in  a 
short  time  by  evaporation  or  capillary 
transmission  through  fibrous  matters  in 
the  overflow,  and  which,  at  the  same  time, 
have  their  channels  so  arranged  that  the 
walls  are  well  scoured  at  each  discharge 
Even  these  are  not  wholly  beyond  suspi- 
cion. To  those  who  have  given  no  thought 
to  this  branch  of  the  subject,  it  may 
seem  a  super-refinement  of  criticism  to 
make  this  sweeping  objection  to  an  ap- 


37 

pliance  of  modern  life  which  is  in  almost 
universal  use  in  town  and  country ;  but  I 
believe  it  to  be  susceptible  of  proof,  that 
of  all  the  causes  of  the  various  manifesta- 
tions of  impaired  vitality  which  occur  in 
our  otherwise  well-appointed  houses,  by 
far  the  greater  majority  have  received 
their  filth-born  impulse  from  poisonous 
gases  escaping  through  the  overflow  and 
waste  pipes  of  wash-bowls,  bath-tubs,  etc. 

Surely  no  one  who  has  given  attention 
to  the  details  of  plumbing  can  escape  a 
certain  sense  of  hazard,  when  he  finds 
himself  an  occupant  of  a  friend's  guest- 
chamber,  whose  white  marble  fixed  wash- 
basin whispers  to  him,  the  whole  night 
through,  of  the  hidden  horrors  of  which  it 
is  the  decorated  outlet. 

With  a  means  for  drawing  water  on 
each  floor  and  with  a  closet-bowl  through 
which  to  dispose  of  slops,  the  labor  of  at- 
tending our  old  friends,  the  bowl  and 
pitcher,  is  not  serious  j  and  such  a,n,  ar- 
rangement offers  absolute  security  against 
a  defect  which  has  thus  far  not  been 
remedied. 


I  have  sufficiently  indicted  the  very 
simply  improvements  that  are  reeded  in 
connection  with  the  water-supply  and 
drainage  of  that  part  of  the  house  which 
is  occupied  by  the  family.  The  kitchen 
sink  makes  no  slight  demand  upon  our 
consideration.  Its  outlet  offers  a  passage, 
not,  it  is  true,  for  fecal  matter,  but  for 
every  sort  of  organic  suostance  from 
which  fecal  matter  is  derived ;  and  which 
may  supply,  on  its  decomposition,  precise- 
ly the  gases  which  are  generated  in  the 
ordinary  soil-pipes.  It  docs  not  carry  the 
germs  of  disease  j  but  its  scraps  of  food, 
etc.,  are,  on  the  other  hand,  mixed  with 
congealed  grease,  which  covers  them  to 
a  certain  degree  against  the  access  of  oxy- 
gen, and  tends  to  make  their  decomposi- 
tion especially  foul.  Add  to  this  the  seri- 
ous difficulty,  that  the  congealing  of  the 
grease  has  a  tendency  to  obstruct  the 
waste-pipe,  and  lead  to  leakage  and  sub- 
terranean overflow  of  a  serious  character. 

The  methods  for  remedying  these  dis- 
advantages are  well  known,  and  may  be 
easily  applied.  The  leading  safeguard  in 


39 

the  whole  matter,  here  as  elsewhere,  is  to 
be  sought  in  the  free  ventilation  of  the 
waste-pipe  at  a  point  as  near  as  possible 
to  its  source,  and  in  the  introduction  of  an 
efficient  water-seal  and  grease-trap. 

We  come  now  to  the  method  of  finally 
disposing  of  the  liquid  waste  of  the  house. 
Any  one  who  has  had  much  experience  in 
the  investigation  of  defective  works  must 
have  reached  the  conclusion  that  those 
cases  are  really  few  in  which  even  the  de- 
fective methods  adopted  have  been  ex- 
ecuted in  anything  but  a  defective  way. 
The  sanitary  formula  of  Hippocrates, 
"  Pure  air,  Pure  water,  and  a  Pure  soil," 
is  violated  hardly  less  often  by  the  earthen- 
ware drain  without  the  house  than  by  the 
waste-pipes  within  it.  A  vitrified  earthen- 
ware drain  laid  on  a  firm  foundation,  and 
connected  at  its  joints  with  good,  cement, 
.  is  as  perfect  an  apparatus  for  conveying 
foul  liquids  as  we  can  well  conceive  of; 
but  far  too  often  the  cementing  of  the 
joints  is  much  less  than  perfect;  and  in 
almost  a  majority  of  cases,  the  pipe  at 


ID 

some  point  rests  upon  new  filling,  which, 
by  a  settlement  of  a  single  half-inch,  is 
quite  sure  to  open  a  crevice  at  the  joint, 
through  which  the  trickling  filth  escaping 
from  the  house  may  find  its  outlet.  In 
every  case  where  it  is  necessary  to  pass 
through  any  thing  but  the  original  un- 
broken and  solid  earth,  the  excavation 
should  be  carried  down  to  the  undug  bot- 
tom, and  filled  to  the  grade  of  the  drain 
with  well-compacted  concrete.  Either  do 
this,  or  else  substitute  a  stout  iron  pipe 
wherever  new  filling  has  to  be  crossed, 
however  firmly  this  may  have  been  packed. 
The  disposal  of  the  liquid  wastes  of  the 
house  is  one  of  the  most  serious  elements 
of  our  subject.  In  a  town,  where  we  have 
a  public  sewer  which  may  be  depended 
upon  for  removing  whatever  we  deliver  to 
it,  however  defective  this  may  be  in  the 
eyes  of  the  public  sanitarian^  the  problem 
is  solved  so  far  as  the  house-holder  is  con- 
cerned. He  may  easily  make  such  a  dis- 
connection of  the  air-channel  which  brings 
his  soil-pipe  into  communication  with  the 


41 

public  drain,  as  to  insure  himself  against 
any  danger  from  this  source  of  poisoned 
air. 

But  in  the  case  of  a  country-house, 
where  a  large  amount  of  liquid  is  to  be 
disposed  of,  and  where  there  is  a  serious 
danger  that  we  may  contaminate  the 
source  of  our  drinking-water,  or  render  the 
air  about  us  impure,  too  much  attention 
cannot  be  paid  to  the  securing  of  a  per- 
fect method. 

So  far  as  I  know,  there  are  but  two  per- 
missible devices  in  use.  One  of  these, 
and  the  most  objectionable,  is  an  absolute- 
ly tight  cesspool,  well  ventilated  and  ac- 
cessible for  inspection  and  cleaning,  but 
from  which  not  one  drop  of  liquid  can  fil- 
ter away  into  the  soil — care  being  taken 
to  empty  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  produce 
the  least  possible  offence.  Such  a  cess- 
pool is  a  criminal — under  restraint,  it  is 
true,  but  with  a  latent  power  for  mischief 
which  is  appalling.  Fortunately,  it  is  no 
longer  necessary  that  such  a  dangerous 
nuisance  should  exist,  for  even  the  small- 
est and  cheapest  house  which  has  any  ad- 


joining  plot  of  ground,  even  of  a  very 
modest  size,  can  afford  a  satisfactory  sub- 
stitute. 

The  alternative  is  application  to  the  soil. 
The  upper  layers  of  earth,  to  whatever 
depth  air  can  penetrate  freely,  possess 
the  power  of  destroying  the  dangerous  and 
offensive  properties  of  all  dead  organic 
matter  which  is  brought  into  contact  with 
them.  Filth  which  is  spread  over  the 
surface  of  the  ground  is  changed  rapidly 
into  inoffensive  mineral  plant  food  and  ab- 
sorbed by  growing  vegetation.  This 
change  is  brought  about  by  biolysis,  a 
form  of  oxidation  similar  in  its  results  to 
combustion,  but  differing  from  it  in  this, 
that  the  agent  which  affects  the  chemical 
union  of  the  oxygen  with  the  integral  ele- 
ments of  the  filth  is  not  fire,  but  myriads 
of  microscopic  living  organisms,  called 
bacteria.  These  organisms  are  to  be 
found  in  abundance  in  every  square  inch 
of  surface  soil.  Their  function  is  to  re- 
move the  wastes  of  life  processes  and  to 
restore  the  materials  of  which  they  were 
composed  to  the  storehouse  from  which 


43 

all  plant  life  must  draw.  They  are  not 
only  beneficent ;  they  are  absolutely  in- 
despensable  to  the  very  existence  of  life 
upon  the  earth  j  for  without  them  the  ani- 
mal kingdom  would  soon  be  buried  in  its 
own  excretions,  while  the  vegetable  world 
would  suffer  for  lack  of  food.  To  avail 
ourselves  of  their  energies,  we  have  only 
to  distribute  the  sewage  over  or  in  thi 
surface  soil,  in  such  a  way  as  to  ensure 
the  intimate  contact  with  the  air  of  every 
drop ;  and  to  change  the  point  of  applica- 
tion from  time  to  time,  so  that  the  pores 
of  the  ground  may  not  become  saturated 
and  thus  closed  to  the  entrance  of  air. 

The  simplest  method  of  applying  this 
process  is  to  flirt  each  pailful  of  sewage, 
while  fresh,  over  the  grass,  taking  care 
not  to  throw  liquid  on  the  same  spot  twice 
in  one  day.  In  the  elaboration  of  this 
system,  the  sewage  is  collected  in  a  flush- 
tank,  instead  of  a  pail,  which  discharges 
it  automatically,  at  intervals,  either  over 
the  surface,  or  into  open-jointed  drain- tiles, 
laid  just  below  the  surface.  To  secure 


44 

intermittent  application,  necessary  for  ef- 
ficient aeration,  the  flow  is  delivered  alter- 
nately to  different  tracts. 

The  area  required  is  not  large.  One 
thousand  square  f  3et  of  lawn  will  purify 
the  wastes  of  a  small  family.  If  a  space 
of  this  size,  at  a  little  distance  from  the 
house,  can  be  devoted  to  the  purpose,  the 
sewage  can  be  run  over  the  surface  of  the 
ground.  Such  a  system  is  cheap  to  build, 
easy  to  control  and  efficient  in  operation. 
Where  the  only  available  land  lies  close  to 
buildings,  the  sewage  is  discharged  into 
open- jointed  tiles  laid  a  few  inches  below 
the  surface.  I  know  of  one  installation 
on  the  latter  plan,  in  Newport,  R.  I.,  which 
has  been  in  successful  operation  for  many 
years,  where  the  wastes  of  a  large  family 
are  absorbed  and  purified  by  a  small  area 
of  front  lawn,  lying  directly  between  the 
house  and  the  road.  One  end  of  the  cro- 
quet-ground overlaps  the  disposal  tract 
and  hammocks  are  swung  over  the  main 
distributing  line  of  the  irrigation  tile. 
The  flush-tank,  built  of  white  enameled 


45 


brick,  which  collects  the  flow  and  dischar- 
ges it  periodically,  is  in  the  side  yard,  not 
far  from  the  library  windows. 

This  system  of  intermittent  application 
to  land  has  been  widely  adopted  for  coun- 
try residences  and  its  use  is  extending 
with  great  rapidity. 

I  am  frequently  asked  whether  the 
earth- closet  does  not  offer  a  solution  of 
the  house-drainage  question.  Having 
been  for  years  its  enthusiastic  advocate, 
and  realizing  as  well  as  any  one  can  its 
value,  under  certain  conditions,  in  the 
hands  of  those  who  will  give  it  a  little  in- 
telligent care,  I  am  still  compelled  to  say 
that,  in  the  case  of  the  ordinary  house- 
holder, it  is  not  to  be  considered  where 
the  introduction  of  a  good  water-carriage 
system  is  practicable.  The  latter  requires 
less  attention,  is  more  neat  in  some  re- 
spects, and  can  hardly  become  dangerous 
even  if  neglected ;  but  its  chief  value  lies 
in  the  fact  that  it  will  remove  all  the  liquid 
wastes  of  the  house, — from  the  kitchen, 
bath  and  wash-room,  as  well  as  from  the 
water-closet.  These  wastes  require  equal 


46 

care  in  treatment  (save  when  the  excreta 
are  infected  with  the  germs  of  specific 
diseases),  for  all  contain  the  same  putres- 
cible  materials.  The  earth-closet  has  a 
field  of  usefulness, — to  cover  all  those  cases 
where  the  water-closet  cannot  be  used,  or 
where  it  would  be  subjected  to  the  abuse 
of  ignorant  or  careless  persons.  Its  value 
for  country  schools  and  farmhouses  which 
are  not  supplied  with  water,  and  where 
children  or  invalids  must  otherwise  ex- 
pose themselves  to  inclement  weather, 
cannot  be  overestimated.  At  the  same 
time,  it  is  but  a  step  in  the  right  direction, 
not  a  goal.  It  should  be  abandoned  with- 
out hesitation  wherever  and  whenever  a 
water-carriage  system  becomes  possible. 

My  limited  space  will  not  allow  me  to 
consider,  as  I  should  be  glad  to,  the  broad 
and  important  question  of  the  removal,  by 
underdraining,  of  the  soil-water  from  re- 
tentive lands  forming  the  lawns  and  gar- 
dens of  country-houses  j  and  I  believe 
that  the  day  has  passed,  when  it  is  neces- 
sary to  say  a  word  on  the  subject  of  that 
crowning  abomination,  the  old-fashioned 


47 

vaulted  privy.  We  still  accept  it  as  an 
evil  which  has  too  much  headway  for  us 
to  stop  it  at  once ;  but  those  of  us  who 
have  not  been  misled  into  the  fallacy  of 
believing  that  the  "odorless  excavating 
apparatus"  has  made  its  continuance  per- 
missible do  not  need  to  be  reminded  again 
of  its  entirely  uncivilized  character,  and 
of  the  unhealthf  ul  influences  that  it  must 
inevitably  and  in  every  case  exert. 


THE 

SANITARY  CONDITION 

OF 

CITY  HOUSES. 


A  SUITABLY  built,  suitably  arranged,  and 
suitably  surrounded  city  house  is  probably 
the  safest  of  all  human  habitations ;  but  a 
suitably  built,  suitably  arranged,  and  suit- 
ably surrounded  city  house  is  probably 
the  rarest  of  all  human  constructions. 

The  country  house  gets,  from  its  isolat- 
ed position,  a  full  bath  of  sunlight,  and  a 
free  circulation  of  pure  air,  which  counter- 
balance many  of  its  customary  defects. 
But  in  spite  of  this,  its  defects  are  often 
pronounced;  and  deleterious  influences 
arising  from  soil  exhalations  and  from 
improper  disposal  of  wastes  are  in  its  case 
often  very  serious. 

A  city  house  with  an  absolutely  imper- 


49 

vious  sheet  of  concrete  between  its  cellar 
and  the  underlying  ground,  with  imper- 
vious cellar  walls,  with  due  protection 
against  the  rising  of  damp  through  its 
foundation,  and  with  a  sufficient  circulation 
of  fresh  air  through  its  cellar,  is  practically 
isolated  from  any  source  of  danger  con- 
nected with  the  ground  over  which  it  is 
built.  The  earth  in  front  of  it  is  covered 
with  pavement,  protected  against  undue 
saturation  by  its  ability  to  shed  rain ;  and 
the  earth  behind  it  is  either  covered  in  like 
manner  with  close  pavement  or  has  its 
exhalations  filtered  by  the  vegetation  of 
its  grass-plot  —  so  that,  supposing  the 
whole  area  in  its  neighborhood  to  be  pro- 
tected in  like  manner  by  the  belongings 
of  other  houses,  there  is  little  to  fear  from 
a  malarious  condition  of  the  ground. 
Supposing  every  house  in  the  neighbor- 
hood to  be  thoroughly  well  protected  in 
the  way  indicated,  it  might  stand  over  a 
pestilential  swamp  without  much  danger. 
It  is  no  argument  against  this  assertion, 
that  such  of  the  houses  with  which  we  are 
familiar  as  stand  over  the  site  of  an  origi- 


50 

nal  pond  or  swamp  are  subjected  to  mala- 
rial diseases,  because  the  usual  manner  of 
construction  has  left  them  without  the 
necessary  protection  against  ground  exhal- 
ations Probably  to  a  certain  extent  the 
freest  and  best-drained  soil  acquires  in 
time,  from  the  character  of  the  early  oc- 
cupation of  town-sites,  a  certain  degree  of 
fouling  which  the  absence  of  vegetation, 
and  the  crowding  of  houses,  so  thickly  as 
to  exclude  sunlight  and  the  circulation  of 
air,  allow  to  become  dangerous ;  and  there 
is  frequently  an  undue  amount  of  ground 
moisture  which  affects  foundation  walls 
and  cellar  bottoms  as  these  are  usually 
constructed.  The  extent  to  which  the  un- 
wholesome influence  of  the  ground  air 
and  moisture  from  the  soil  is  felt  by  the 
occupants  of  town  houses  varies,  of  course, 
very  much  according  to  the  original  char- 
acter of  the  ground.  Where  the  ground 
is  dry  and  sweet  there  is  little  to  be  appre- 
hended. The  ordinary  ventilation  of  the 
cellar,  which  comes  from  careless  work- 
manship, is  generally  sufficient  for  safety ; 
but  in  proportion  as  the  dampness  or  foul- 


51 

ness  increases,  in  just  that  proportion 
careless  building  becomes  dangerous. 

We  know  vory  well,  from  a  difference 
in  salubrity  between  houses  standing  on 
proper  sites  and  houses  standing  on  im- 
proper sites,  that  this  influence  of  soil 
emanations  is  serious ;  probably,  so  far  as 
the  usual  slighter  malarial  ailments  are 
concerned,  this  soil  influence  is  the  most 
serious  with  which  we  have  to  contend. 
At  the  same  time  the  debilitating  effect  of 
the  exhalations  referred  to  —  headache, 
neuralgia,  loss  of  appetite,  intermittent 
fever,  etc. — take  a  far  lighter  hold  upon 
the  popular  imagination  than  do  the  often 
fatal  diseases  which  are  produced  by  bad 
air  of  another  sort.  The  low  condition 
and  consequent  susceptibility  to  infection 
which  the  malaria  of  damp  soil  produces, 
doubtless  aggravate  very  seriously  the 
dangers  arising  from  the  other  source; 
that  is  to  say,  persons  enfeebled  by  expos- 
ure to  malaria  would  often  succumb  to  in- 
fection, when  a  robust  and  vigorous  person 
would  withstand  it. 

Mankind  has  been  too  long  accustomed 


52 

to  living  in  the  face  of  threatening  infec- 
tion, and  has  been  too  long  educated  in 
the  belief  that  all  fatal  disorders  are  to  be 
accepted  as  the  chastening  work  of  God's 
inscrutable  purpose,  for  us  to  hope  that 
the  average  man  will  at  once  realize  the 
degree  to  which  his  life  and  health  are  de- 
pendent upon  the  manner  in  which  he 
controls  the  circumstances  and  conditions 
of  his  living.  Happily,  it  is  now  well  rec- 
ognized that  typhoid  fever,  diphtheria,  ce- 
rebro-spinal  meningitis,  and  various  grave 
disorders  of  the  bowels,  are  the  crop  pro- 
duced by  planting  in  the  system  certain 
organic  impurities,  whose  action  is  as 
direct,  under  favorable  circumstances,  as 
is  that  of  the  spores  of  pcnicillium  in  pro- 
ducing a  crop  of  mould  when  planted  on 
the  surface  of  a  damp  boot.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  discuss  here  the  merits  of  the 
"germ"  theory.  It  cannot  be  disputed 
that,  whatever  we  may  call  the  agent  of 
propagation,  there  is  an  active  agent  pecu- 
liar to  each  disease.  If  we  plant  cowpox 
we  grow  cowpox,  if  we  plant  small-pox  we 
grow  small-pox,  if  we  plant  typhoid  we 


53 

grow  typhoid ;  and  so  on  throughout  a  long- 
range  of  diseases  whose  limit  is  not  yet 
defined. 

Whatever  our  seed,  our  crop  depends 
greatly  upon  the  soil  in  which  it  is  planted. 
In  the  case  of  a  vigorous,  active  person, 
of  strong  constitution,  and  living  under 
wholesome  conditions,  it  may  fall  on 
sterile  ground  and  be  lost,  while  the  same 
seed  sown  in  the  blood  of  the  weakly  may 
produce  its  fatal  crop  with  certainty  and 
abundance. 

It  is  largely  in  connection  with  the  in- 
fluence of  the  constitution  upon  liability 
to  infection — in  addition  to  the  minor  dis- 
orders and  discomforts  resulting  from  the 
rising  of  swamp  malaria  and  the  conditions 
which  produce  fever  and  ague  and  neural- 
gia— that  we  have  to  consider  the  impor- 
tance oj  excluding  the  ground  air  from  the 
house?  It  is  probably  but  rarely  in  city 
building  that  there  remains  in  the  subsoil 
such  a  degree  of  foulness  as  to  produce 
typhoid  fever  and  similar  diseases;  but 
the  instances  where  a  liability  to  fall  before 
their  attack  is  produced  by  this  sort  of 


54 

unwholesomeness  are  by  no  means  rare. 

The  causes  of  grave  infection  are  pre- 
cisely the  same  in  the  city  that  they  are 
in  the  country,  and  they  grow  in  both 
cases  from  improper  protection  against  the 
emanations  from  the  organic  filth  which 
is  a  necessary  product  of  all  human  life. 
In  the  country  it  is  perhaps  less  often  by 
the  fouling  of  the  air  than  by  the  fouling 
of  the  water  that  these  diseases  are  spread. 
In  the  city,  the  water  coming  from  an  un- 
tainted supply,  the  source  of  infection 
must  be  sought  elsewhere. 

We  are  far  from  possessing  such  accur- 
ate knowledge  of  the  conditions  of  decom- 
position which  favor  the  multiplication  of 
the  germs  of  disease,  or  the  production  of 
such  a  condition  of  the  air  as  produces 
disease,  that  it  can  be  demonstrated  with 
scientific  certainty  that  under  such  and 
such  conditions  typhoid  fever  will  be  pro- 
duced, and  under  such  other  its  production 
will  be  impossible.  It  is  a  case  where  we 
must  consider  circumstantial  evidence. 

No  chemical  analysis  of  the  water-closet 
Irainage,  which  oozed  into  the  Broad 


55 

Street  pump  in  London,  demonstrates  to  us 
that  germs  of  cholera  were  communicated 
to  its  reservoir  j  but  it  i-s  known  that  a 
water-closet  whose  outflow  reached  that 
well  was  used  by  a  cholera  patient,  and 
that  within  a  week  more  than  five  hundred 
persons,  scattered  over  one  of  the  best 
parts  of  London,  and  even  as  far  as  Rich- 
mond Hill,  whither  they  had  fled  to  escape 
the  plague,  but  whence  they  sent  to  this 
pump  for  water,  were  killed  by  cholera; 
the  only  possible  communicating  link 
between  the  individuals  of  this  scattered 
multitude  being  that  they  drank  this 
water. 

We  know  by  frequent  observation,  that 
persons  living  in  houses  where  soil-pipes 
leak,  or  wash-basin  traps  are  inefficient, 
are  liable  to  fall  sick  with  diphtheria  or 
typhoid  fever.  We  know  that  when  the 
defective  pipe  has  been  removed  and  a 
tight  one  substituted  for  it,  or  when  the 
faulty  basin  outlet  has  been  closed,  such 
diseases  cease.  We  do  not  know  precise- 
ly how  the  leakage  from  the  imperfect 
pipe  produced  the  disease.  Therefore,  all 


•  50 

that  is  said  concerning  this  branch  of  the 
sanitary  subject,  is  to  be  taken  as  the  sum 
of  empirical  knowledge,  and  as  being  in 
so  far  unscientific  that  our  deductions  are 
not  susceptible  of  clear  demonstration. 

Let  us  set  aside  the  question  as  to  the 
manner  in  which  zvmotic  diseases  origi- 
nate, and  assume  that  it  is  demonstrated 
that  they  are  frequently  caused  by  im- 
proper drainage,  and  favored  by  the  ad- 
mission of  drain  air  into  living  rooms. 
Taking  this  as  a  starting-point,  we  find  two 
most  serious  questions  to  be  considered : 

1.  How  shall  we  keep  out  of  the  house 
the  influences  arising  from  the  ground  be- 
neath it  and  beside  it,  which  tend  to  pro- 
duce a  low    condition   of  health,   and  to 
create  a  susceptibility  to  zymotic  poison- 
ing? 

2.  How    shall    we    protect    ourselves 
against  such  infection  as  comes  to  us  from 
within  or  without  the  house,  as  a  result  of 
improper  methods  for  the  public  and  pri- 
vate disposal  of  the  wastes  of  the  body  and 
and  of  the  household  ? 

Concerning  the  injurious  ground  air,  it 


57 

may  be  assumed,  however  serious  the  dif- 
ficulty, that  it  may  be  nearly  or  entirely 
remedied  by  a  thorough  draining  of  the 
soil  below  the  level  of  the  house  cellar, 
by  making  the  cellar-floor,  the  foundation- 
walls,  and  the  pavement  and  walls  of  base- 
ment areas,  hermetically  tight;  and  by 
providing  for  the  complete,  even  if  very 
slight,  ventilation,  of  the  cellar  itself. 
This  is  recognized  on  all  hands,  at  least  so 
tar  as  the  cellar  wall  and  foundation  are 
concerned,  as  being  necessary  to  the  best 
building.  In  time  it  will  come  to  be  abso- 
lutely required  by  public  authorities  wha 
have  the  regulation  of  the  way  in  which 
builder's  work  must  be  carried  out. 
,  That  the  importance  of  this  complete 
separation  of  the  house  from  the  ground 
under  and  about  it  is  by  no  means  popu- 
larly regarded  as  essential,  our  daily  ob- 
servation proves.  Those  contractor-built 
rows  of  cheap  houses,  built  by  the  block 
and  sawed  off  in  sixteen-foot  lengths  to 
suit  the  demand,  which  cover  so  many 
hundred  acres  of  every  great  city,  are  built 
almost  invariably  without  the  least  regard 


58 


to  the  influence  of  the  soil  below  them 
upon  the  health  of  those  who  are  to  live 
within  them.  That  strictly  American 
adjective,  "first-class,"  which  makes  every 
degree  of  badness  acceptable  to  the  am- 
bitious mind,  has  its  requirements  fully 
satisfied  by  a  certain  conventional  expen- 
diture about  the  front  and  the  entrance 
door  of  the  building,  by  high  ceilings,  and 
by  a  judicious  touch  of  "  Queen  Anne " 
joinery  and  paper-hanging.  The  house 
may  be  the  veriest  rattle-trap  that  ever 
trembled  over  the  site  of  a  recent  swine- 
yard;  there  may  be  the  freest  racing- 
ground  for  rats  from  garret  to  cellar;  it 
may  have  twenty  openings  in  its  drainage 
system,  which  are  separated  from  the 
street  sewer  only  by  ineffective  and  often 
inoperative  water-seal  traps ;  its  foundation 
walls  may  leak,  and  its  cellar  may  often 
hold  stagnant  water.  With  all  these  de- 
fects, and  with  all  the  "scamping"  of  its 
work,  which  are  evident  to  the  practised 
eye,  if  its  experienced  builder  has  had  the 
shrewdness  to  give  it  that  touch  of  cheap 
finish  which  makes  it  "first-class,"  he  may 


59 

count  on  a  price  that  will  make  his  opera- 
tion a  good  one.  Should  he  be  able  to 
add  the  taking  recommendation  that  the 
house  has  been  built  "entirely  by  days' 
work,"  it  matters  little  that  it  was  the  days' 
\vork  of  apprentices  and  bunglers. 

One  of  the  almost  universal  defects  of 
New  York  houses  is  strictly  fundamental. 
The  proportion  of  houses  of  the  costlier 
sort  that  would  bear  a  rigid  inspection  as 
to  the  efficiency  of  their  cellar  floors,  foun- 
dation-walls, and  areas,  must  be  extremely 
small.  The  gravity  of  this  drawback  is 
sufficiently  understood  by  all  who  know 
the  prevalent  ailing  condition  of  the 
women  and  children  whom  these  houses 
shelter. 

Much  more  serious,  when  measured  by 
the  death  and  pain  that  it  produces, 
though  hardly  more  so  with  regard  to  its 
effect  on  the  health  and  efficiency  of  the 
people,  is  the  question  of  disposing  of  the 
household  wastes. 

Men  living  in  widely  scattered  communi- 
ties find  it  easy,  in  their  rude  way,  to  get 
rid  of  the  organic  refuse  that  they  produce,' 


60 

without  serious  injury  to  their  healf  4  A* 
houses  are  made  tighter  and  move  gather- 
ed together,  the  trouble  increases  with  re- 
gard both  to  the  waste  or  each  household 
as  reacting  upon  its  o  wii  members,  and  to 
the  influence  that  it  may  have  upon  the 
members  of  other  households.  When  men 
gather  together  into  closer  built  towns. 
they  bring  with  them  at  first  the  institu- 
tions of  the  village  —the  vault  in  the  back 
yard,  the  leaching  cesspool,  and  the  slop- 
gutter.  The  methods  of  life  implied  by 
the  use  of  these  systems  are  accompanied 
by  defects  of  construction  and  ventilation 
which  give  a  high  death-rate.  It  may  be 
questioned  whether,  with  a  public  supply 
of  good  water,  there  is  any  great  amount 
of  actual  poisoning  occasioned  by  such 
disposal  of  filth.  Indeed,  the  statistics  of 
health  in  Baltimore  show  an  exceptionally 
small  death-rate,  although  the  slop-v»ter 
of  the  house  is  carried  away  through  sur- 
face channels,  amd  the  gutters  at  the  sides 
of  the  streets  are  almost  constantly  run- 
ning with  soap-suds  and  kitchen  sink 
waste.  The  untidiness  suggested  by  this 


61 


custom  makes  it  one  of  the  first  efforts  of 
the  dainty  and  fastidious  to  hide  such 
matters  out  of  sight,  by  passing  them 
away  in  covered  channels. 

Human  ingenuity  has  been  able  as  yet 
to  devise  no  system  for  the  disposal  of  all 
manner  of  liquid  waste  which  is  at  once 
so  inoffensive,  so  invisible,  and  so  health- 
ful, as  a  well-arranged  system  of  water- 
carriage  removal.  The  unfortunate  thing 
about  it  all  is  that  it  is  easy  to  meet  the 
requirements  of  the  fastidious  by  such  a 
development  of  the  system  as  is,  from  a 
sanitary  point  of  view,  the  worst  possible. 
Marble-top  wash-stands  with  silver-plated 
fittings,  decorated  china  closet-bowls,  por- 
celain-lined baths,  stationary  trays  in  the 
laundry,  and  the  brightest  and  handsomest 
workmanship  wherever  the  plumbing  is 
visible  throughout  the  house,  are  too  often 
thjjjjjoutward  manifestation  of  pestilential 
hidden  dangers. 

Art  can  hardly  achieve  more  in  the  way 
of  luxurious  appointments  than  is  com- 
passed by  all  of  these  details  in  a  modern 
house  of  the  best  sort.  The  character  of 


62 

their  finish  has  much  to  do  with  the  esti- 
mate that  the  intending  purchaser  or  ten- 
ant puts  upon  the  house  he  examines,  as 
they  are  the  subject  of  some  of  the  most 
minute  of  the  architect's  specifications. 
When  we  consider  the  interior  construc- 
tion and  arrangement  of  the  hidden  sys- 
tem to  which  they  belong,  we  approach  a 
part  of  the  subject  concerning  which  the 
purchaser,  the  architect,  and  the  tenant, 
are  too  often  ignorant  and  indifferent. 
Nor  do  the  dangers  which  belong  to  the 
modern  house  drainage  system  cease  when 
we  pass  the  limit  of  private  work,  and 
come  to  the  public  sewer  to — and  from — 
which  the  house  drains  lead. 

The  sewer  and  the  drain  meet  one  im- 
perative requirement  of  the  community. 
They  are  hidden  from  sight,  and  their 
processes  are  not  offensively  manifest,  as 
are  those  of  the  slush-bearing  surface 
gutter. 

It  is  often  assumed,  perhaps  because  of 
the  name  given  to  the  air  of  which  we 
hear  so  much  and  which  is  so  widely  de- 
structive— "  sewer-gas ",  that  the  dim- 


63 

culty  lies  entirely  or  chiefly  in  the  public 
sewer,  and  that  we  have  only  to  improve 
the  character  of  this,  or  so  to  detach  our 
private  system  of  drainage  from  it  as  to 
prevent  the  transmission  of  its  air. 

City  sewers  are  too  often  badly  planned, 
badly  built,  and  badly  kept,  and  they  do 
unquestionably  produce  a  vast  amount  of 
disease  and  death.  We  can  by  no  means, 
however,  charge  them  alone  with  all  or 
nearly  all  of  the  harm  that  is  done  5  for  so 
far  as  the  production  of  dangerous  gas  is 
concerned,  the  waste-pipe  of  the  house  it- 
self, smeared  from  top  to  bottom  with  the 
foulest  organic  matter,  putrefying  often 
under  the  worst  conditions,  and  with  fre- 
quent variations  of  temperature  caused  by 
the  entrance  of  hot  and  cold  water,  is  at 
least  a  brave  rival  of  the  worst  street 
sewer. 

There  are  still  many  houses  in  aL  our 
cities  in  which  lead  soil-pipes  are  used. 
The  experiments  of  Dr.  Fergus,  of  Glas- 
gow, have  demonstrated  in  the  clearest 
way  the  great  suspectibility  of  lead  to  the 
corroding  influences  of  foul  gases  arising 


64 

from  organic  decomposition.  He  cites  a 
great  number  of  instances  in  which  even 
after  a  few  months'  use  the  action  of  these 
gases  upon  the  material  of  the  soil-pipe 
has  perforated  it  through  and  through, 
and  in  some  cases  completely  honeycomb- 
ed a  considerable  area  of  its  wall.  This 
effect  is  produced  by  gases  and  not  by  the 
foul  water,  as  is  proven  by  the  fact  that 
the  perforations  aro  always  at  the  upper 
side  of  the  pipe,  and  never  011  its  lower 
side,  where  the  water  flows.  It  occurs 
along  the  upper  side  of  horizontal  and 
oblique  pipes,  and  especially  at  the  upper 
side  of  a  bend,  as  in  front  of  a  trap  j  for 
the  reason  that  the  lightness  of  the  gas 
causes  it  to  lie  chiefly  ag-ainst  these  parts 
of  the  pipe.  The  perforations  being  at 
the  upper  side  of  the  pipe,  they  are  not 
manifested  by  the  leaking  out  of  water,  as 
the  conduit  is  rarely  filled.  Often  where 
it  is  horizontal  or  oblique,  it  serves  only 
as  a  gutter,  its  upper  side  being  largely 
eaten  away. 

Even  the  smallest  perforation  may  be- 
come a  source  of  the  most  serious  danger; 


65 


a  mere  pin-hole  may  permit  the  escape  of 
such  an  amount  of  air  from  the  pipe  as  to 
poison  the  atmosphere  of  a  large  room. 
The  apertures  formed  by  corrosion,  how- 
ever, are  rarely  so  small  as  pin-holes,  and 
they  are  not  infrequently  large  enough  to 
admit  the  finger. 

In  modern  practice  it  is  practically  uni- 
versal to  use  for  the  soil  pipe  and  the  lar- 
ger branch- wastes,  cast  iron  in  the  place 
of  lead.  This  material  is  not  susceptible 
to  perforation  from  the  action  of  its  con- 
tained gases,  but,  as  drainage  works  are 
constructed,  it  is  often  fed  by  numerous 
waste-pipes  of  lead;  which  come  to  it 
from  bath-tubs,  wash-basins,  butler's  sinks, 
laundry  trays,  and  urinals,  and  even  the 
water-closet  often  has  a  trap  or  a  connec- 
tion pipe  of  lead.  All  of  these  leaden  con- 
nections are  subject  to  the  same  liability 
to  corrosion  as  is  the  lead  soil-pipe  itself ; 
and  in  one  sense  they  aggravate  the  dan- 
ger, from  the  fact  that  perforations  occur- 
ring in  them  are  more  likely  to  discharge 
gas  into  sleeping-rooms  or  into  the  more 
frequented  parts  of  the  house. 


66 

The  especial  adaptation  of  lead  to  the 
construction  of  these  minor  waste-water 
channels  because  of  its  flexibility,  and  of 
the  ease  with  which  it  is  jointed,  make  it 
almost  necessary  that  it  should  be  used  j 
but,  as  plumbing-work  is  generally  con- 
structed, it  is  used  with  more  or  less  risk. 

Abundant  ventilation  of  the  entire 
drainage  system  is  most  important. 

The  poisonous  sort  of  sewer-gas  is  the 
product  of  an  obstructed  decomposition  • 
of  fermentation,  which  Pasteur  aptly  calls 
"life  without  air."  The  atmosphere  within 
the  unventilated  soil-pipe  does  not  contain 
sufficient  oxygen  to  supply  the  continuous 
decomposition,  which  is  thus  checked  un- 
til the  oxygen  which  it  requires  is  supplied 
by  constituents  of  the  organic  matters 
themselves — a  process  which  leads  to  a 
radical  difference  in  the  resultant  gases. 
Instead  of  being  a  thorough  destructive 
oxidation  of  the  material  it  becomes  a  pu- 
trefying decomposition,  producing  foul 
smelling  and  dangerous  results. 

That  part  of  the  soil-pipe  which  carries 
the  waste  of  the  butler's  pantry  and  the 


67 

kitchen  sink,  is  more  or  less  charged  with 
melted  grease,  which  coats  the  accom- 
panying particles  of  food  and  of  filth,  and 
so  shelters  them  from  the  action  of  the  air, 
giving  the  same  pernicious  character  to 
their  decomposition. 

The  most  important  improvement  in 
house-drainage  ever  made  is  one  which 
grew  out  of  our  better  knowledge  of  the 
true  character  of  the  decomposition  taking 
place  in  the  soil-pipe.  It  has  for  its  ob- 
jects— and  it  accomplishes  these  objects 
perfectly — the  reduction  of  putrefactive 
fermentation  to  the  minimum,  and  the 
complete  and  immediate  dilution  of  the 
gases  which  the  slight  remaining  putrefac- 
tion does  produce.  It  consists  in  creating 
throughout  the  whole  length  of  the  soil- 
pipe  a  constant  supply  and  a  constant 
movement  of  fresh  outer  air.  This  is  ac- 
complished by  providing  a  fresh  air  inlet 
at  the  lower  end  of  the  soil-pipe,  at  or 
near  its  passage  through  the  house-wall, 
and  the  continuing  of  the  soil-pipe  itself, 
full  bore,  up  through  the  roof  of  the  house 
to  a  point  well  above  all  windows. 


68 

The  soil-pipe  being  properly  constructed 
and  duly  ventilated,  the  only  further  prac- 
ical  improvement  in  the  waste  drain  sys- 
tem seems  to  lie  in  making  its  branches, 
which  lead  from  bath-tubs,  wash-basins, 
etc.,  as  short  as  practicable.  Unless  very 
short,  each  of  these  lines  should  be  venti- 
lated independently. 

The  layman  in  sanitary  matters  usually 
considers  that  the  larger  the  diameter  of 
the  waste-pipe  the  less  the  danger  of  ob- 
struction. The  fact  is  that  all  increase 
above  a  certain  size — smaller  than  the  size 
in  average  use — is  a  distinct  detriment. 
This  is  especially  true  of  the  waste-pipes 
from  kitchen  and  pantry  sinks.  Experi- 
ence has  proved  that  large  pipes  choke 
frequently  because  the  stream  flowing 
through  them  has  not  sufficient  force  to 
keep  them  clean.  With  a  flow  of  low 
speed,  grease,  which  a  strong  flush  would 
carry  to  the  outlet,  is  deposited  upon  the 
walls,  layer  upon  layer,  until  the  water 
way  is  restricted  to  a  size  which  gives  the 
current  a  scouring  velocity.  The  chan- 
nel is  then  no  larger  than  that  of  a  small 


69 

pipe,  but  it  is  tortuous  and  foul.  At  any 
moment  a  portion  of  the  grease,  breaking 
up  under  the  action  of  putrefactive  agen- 
cies, may  become  detached  and  cause 
complete  obstruction.  A  pipe  of  such  size 
as  to  maintain  from  the  first  a  cleansing 
velocity  would  remain  smooth,  true  and  un- 
f  ouled.  A  diameter  of  one  and  a  quarter 
inches  is  amply  large  for  the  waste  from  a 
kitchen  sink.  Indeed,  I  should  not  hesitate 
to  use  a  one-inch  pipe  for  this  purpose. 

The  essentials  of  a  good  water-closet 
may  be  enumerated,  in  the  order  of  their 
importance,  as  follows : 

There  must  be  no  valves,  plungers  or 
moving  parts  in  the  bowl  or  in  the  course 
of  the  outlet.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to 
say  that  the  "  pan  closet " — the  Devil's 
vinaigrette — which  was  once  in  almost 
universal  use,  is  absolutely  inadmissible 
in  modern  plumbing.  It  is  offensive  and 
unsafe.  The  few  tha.t  remain  in  service 
cannot  be  banished  too  quickly.  All  other 
closets  which  have  moving  parts  share,  to  a 
greater  or  less  degree,  the  same  objections. 


70 

There  must  be  a  reliable  seal,  deep 
enough  to  withstand  considerable  pressure 
and  not  susceptible  to  siphonic  action.  It 
is  better  that  this  seal  should  be  in  the 
bowl,  in  plain  sight,  rather  than  con- 
cealed under  the  floor  or  in  the  body  of 
the  closet.  The  depth  of  seal  and  the 
cleanness  of  the  sealing  water  will  then  be 
apparent  to  every  one. 

There  must  be  an  abundant  supply  of 
water  at  each  flush ;  not  merely  enough  to 
drive  excreta  and  paper  promptly  out  of 
the  closet,  but  sufficient  to  lubricate  the 
walls  in  advance  and  to  scour  them  after 
the  passage  of  the  foul  matters,  and  copi- 
ous enough  to  carry  its  burden  to  the  ever- 
moving  stream  in  the  street-sewer.  The 
flush  should  be  from  a  box-tank, — not  di- 
rectly from  the  pipes  of  the  main  supply. 
It  should  discharge  a  fixed  quantity  quick- 
ly, regardless  of  the  length  of  time  that 
the  chain  is  held,  and  it  should  have  an 
"  after-fill "  device  which  will  fill  the  trap 
of  the  closet  to  the  overflow  point. 

The  bowl  should  hold  water  sufficient 


71 

for  the  complete  submersion  of  deposits. 
This  will  minimize  the  odor  resulting 
from  its  use. 

The  closet  should  be  set  without  casing 
or  concealment  of  any  sort,  on  a  durable 
impervious  floor,  preferably  white,  with 
white  surroundings,  so  that  every  particle 
of  dirt  may  be  painfully  apparent.  The 
seat  should  be  as  small  and  light  as  possi- 
ble,— a  single  piece  of  wood  with  a  hole  in 
it,  resting  directly  on  the  bowl  and  hinged 
so  that  it  may  be  turned  back.  No  cover 
is  needed  or  wanted.  The  entire  appara- 
tus inside  and  out,  should  be  open  to  air, 
light,  cleaning  and  the  unbidden  inspection 
of  all  who  come  within  sight  of  it. 

Stationary  wash-stands — and  all  other 
fixtures  connected  with  the  drainage  sys- 
tem of  a  house — should  be  kept  out  of 
and  away  from  sleeping-rooms.  Their 
proper  place  is  in  bath-rooms  and  lava- 
tories. These  should  have  abundant  out- 
side ventilation  and  spring  doors  separating 
them  from  the  rest  of  the  house. 

Neither  basins,  baths,  sinks  or  laundry 
tubs  should  be  encased,  but  each  should 


72 

stand  open  to  ventilation  and  to  view. 
The  waste  from  each  fixture  must  be 
trapped,  as  close  to  the  fixture  as  possible, 
by  some  approved  deep-seal  trap,  secure 
against  siphonic  action. 

Fixtures  with  concealed  overflows  are  to 
be  avoided,  for  these  hidden  passages  be- 
come fouled  with  soapy  matters  and  it  is 
difficult  to  cleanse  them.  A  satisfactory 
device  which  overcomes  this  objection, 
and  which  at  the  same  time  obviates  the 
use  of  the  nasty  chain  and  plug,  formerly 
so  common,  is  the  "standpipe  overflow." 
This  is  simply  a  short  pipe,  with  one  end 
ground  to  fit  the  outlet,  which  serves  both 
as  plug  and  overflow.  It  can  be  cleaned 
most  readily. 

There  are  many  minor  details  that 
might  with  advantage  be  alluded  to  did 
time  permit — such  as  the  objections  to 
long  horizontal  waste-pipes  j  the  impor- 
tance of  having  these  waste-pipes  trapped 
only  at  their  upper  ends,  delivering  at 
their  outlets  into  a  freely  ventilated  soil- 
pipe  ;  the  increasing  importance  of  venti- 
ating  the  waste-pipes  in  proportion  as 


73 

their  length  increases  j  the  necessity  for 
delivering  the  ventilation  of  foul  pipes  at 
such  points  as  will  prevent  their  outflow 
of  air  from  being  involved  in  the  back- 
draught  of  unused  chimneys ;  and  all  the 
long  detail  of  house  ventilation  j  also  the 
pregnant  subject  of  the  poisoning  of  the 
air  by  the  carbonic  oxide  produced  by  the 
burning  of  anthracite,  which  Dr.  Derby 
demonstrates  in  his  valuable  monograph 
on  "  Anthracite  and  Health  j "  together 
with  the  effect  on  health  of  that  foul 
smelling  effluvium  which  comes  from  the 
heating  of  organic  dust  by  steam-pipes, 
and  which  makes  an  unventilated,  steam- 
heated  room  so  disgusting  to  the  unac- 
customed nostril. 

These  are  relegated  to  a  secondary  po- 
sition because,  like  the  necessity  for  free 
sunshine  in  all  inhabited  rooms,  they  are 
less  obviously  connected  with  the  question 
of  life  and  death  than  is  the  matter  of 
drainage  pure  and  simple,  and  are  there- 
fore less  likely  to  engage  immediate  atten- 
tion. 

Interest  in  sanitary   improvement  will 


74 

naturally  first  apply  itself  to  the  more  se- 
rious causes  of  fatal  and  distressing  dis- 
ease ;  but  once  awakened  it  will  pursue 
the  whole  range  of  the  subject,  and  will, 
let  us  hope,  not  abate  until  it  has  com- 
passed a  perfectly  wholesome  condition  in 
every  department,  and  has  secured  to  all, 
what  all  have  a  right  to  demand,  an  en- 
tirely safe  human  habitation. 


EXTRACTS  FROM  CORRESPONDENCE 


Bmerican  Bjcbltcct  anfc  JBuflding 


DISPOSAL  OF  THE  LIQUID  WASTE 


COUNTRY  HOUSES 


CORRESPONDENCE* 


December  16,  1876. 

I  HAVE  followed  with  much  interest  the 
series  of  articles  you  have  published  on 
"  The  Sanitary  Condition  of  Country 
Houses,"  the  subject  being  one  to  which  I 
have  given  considerable  attention. 

It  approaches,  but  does  not  quite  reach, 
one  of  the  points  involved,  which  is  of  so 
much  importance,  that  I  venture  to  ask 
for  the  consideration  in  a  subsequent 
paper.  The  question  I  refer  to  is  that  of 
the  disposition  of  sewage  from  a  country 
house,  where  there  is  no  town  drainage 
available,  and  where  the  grounds  surrounding 
tlie  house  are  level  (which,  by  the  way,  is  the 
usual  condition  in  country  towns).  To 
simplify  the  consideration,  let  it  be  sup- 
posed that  there  is  a  street  water-supply, 


*  "T"  is  HENRY  E.  TOWNE,  Esq.,  of  Stamford,  Conn. 
"B."  is  JAMES  BAYLES.  Esq.,  of  New  York  City.  "W." 
is  the  writer  of  the  foregoing  pages. 


78 

so  that  contamination  of  springs  is  not  to 
be  guarded  against ;  that  the  house  is  pro- 
vided with  water-closets,  sinks,  etc.;  that 
the  waste-pipes  are  all  connected  with 
four-inch  iron  soil-pipe,  and  that  the  latter 
passes  through  the  basement  wall,  from 
three  to  four  feet  below  ground,  to  avoid 
frost.  Now,  given  the  above  conditions, 
how  far  must  the  sewage  be  carried  from 
the  house,  and  how  shall  it  then  be  dis- 
posed of  ? 

Obviously  the  character  of  the  soil  is  an 
important  element  j  and  I  would  suppose, 
therefore,  the  two  most  ordinary  cases,  (1) 
where  the  soil  is  of  gravel,  porous ;  and 
(2)  where  it  consists  of  clay,  not  porous. 
It  should  be  remembered,  also,  that  the 
soil-pipe  necessarily  leaves  the  house  at  a 
depth  which  precludes  the  subsoil  irriga- 
tion system  of  Mr.  Moule. 

The  conditions  I  have  supposed  are  such 
as  will  apply  to  the  majority  of  residences 
in  small  towns  and  suburban  villages,  as 
well  as  to  many  country  houses ;  and  you 
can  do  no  more  useful  service  than  by  in- 
dicating the  proper  treatment  of  this  prob 


79 

lem,  which,  perhaps  on  account  of  its  diffi- 
culty, is  one  but  very  slightly  touched 
upon  in  most  treatises  on  sanitary  engi- 
neering. 

T. 


December  23,  1876. 

IN  the  communication  published  in  your 
issue  of  Dec.  16,  a  question  is  raised  as  to 
the  disposal  of  the  liquid  wastes  of  houses 
which  stand  on  level  ground — the  usual 
condition  in  country  towns.  Mr.  Towne 
thinks  that  the  directions  contained  in 
my  address  before  the  American  Public 
Health  Association  do  not  quite  reach 
this  point. 

I  see  no  escape,  in  the  case  of  such 
houses,  from  the  necessity  for  making  the 
conditions  conform  to  the  requirements. 
Certainly  the  requirements  cannot  be 
made  to  conform  to  the  conditions.  The 
production  of  liquid  wastes  which  are  sure 
to  endanger  health  if  not  properly  got  rid 
of,  is  a  necessary  part  of  the  economy  of 
every  household.  So  far  as  I  know,  there 


80 

are  only  five  systems  by  which  this  liquid 
can  be  treated. 

1.  By  discharge  through  an  open  sur- 
face gutter  to  a  distant  open  vat,  or  waste 
corner  of  the  grounds.     This  is  the  most 
offensive  system,  and  the  one  least  likely 
to  be  adopted  by  persons  who  are  at  all 
nice  in  their  ideas  of  decency ;  but  it  is 
not  necessarily  dangerous  to  health,  if  the 
final  deposit  is  at  some  distance  from  the 
house.     If  the  gutter  is  kept  well  slushed 
out,  the  decomposition  at  the  distance  ter- 
minus will  have  its  foul  emanations  so  di- 
luted by  the  air  before  they  can  reach  the 
windows  as  to  be  innoxious — save  for  their 
smell.      Happily  the  sense  of  decency  will 
prevent  the  adoption  of  this  tolerably  safe 
but  entirely  nasty  expedient. 

2.  By  discharge  into   a  leaking  cess- 
pool.    This  is  the  most  dangerous  system 
yet  devised,  especially  for  houses  not  sup- 
plied with  water  from  public  works.     It  is 
also  a  system  which  public  opinion  and 
public  authority  must  soon  prohibit.     The 
covert  poisoning  of  the  ground  from  which 
the  water-supply  of  a  whole  neighborhood 


81 

is  taken,  and  from  which  the  "ground  air" 
rises  into  and  around  human  habitations, 
will  not  much  longer  be  permitted.  So  far 
as  the  house  itself  is  concerned,  there  ex- 
ists the  further  defect  of  a  constant  for- 
mation of  sewer-gas  in  the  cesspool, 
which  has  no  outlet  save  back  through 
the  pipe  leading  from  (and  to)  the  house 
— a  channel  of  communication  which  no 
form  of  water-seal  trap  can  close. 

3.  A  tight  cesspool ;  not  simply  a  "  ce- 
mented "  cesspool,  but  one  which  is  known 
to  be,  and  is  sure  to  remain,  absolutely 
tight.  It  is  possible  to  make  such  a  cess- 
pool as  this,  but  it  is  not  usual ;  and  it  is 
possible,  but  it  is  still  more  unusual,  to 
ventilate  it  so  that  the  formation  of  poi- 
sonous gases  need  not  be  feared.  In  its 
most  perfect  condition  it  is  subject  to  the 
necessity  for  frequent  emptying;  and  is 
sure  to  be  at  best  only  a  mitigated  nui- 
sance, ready  to  become  a  source  of  real 
danger  whenever  its  impervious  wall  is 
accidentally  made  pervious,  or  when  its 
ventilation  fails  from  any  cause,  or  when 
its  proper  emptying  is  neglected,  or  when 


82 

a  sudden  storm  causes  it  to  overflow,  or  to 
set  back  into  the  house-drain.  Under  the 
best  circumstances  and  conditions,  such  a 
cesspool  may  be  permitted  ;  but  when  the 
householder  himself  is  not  constantly  vig- 
ilant and  attentive — even  anxiously  so — it 
may  become  a  cause  of  serious  mischief. 

4.  By  discharging  into  a  public  sewer. 
If  this  is  well  contrived,  well  constructed, 
and  ivell  ventilated,  it  offers  the  best  solution 
of  the  problem,  so  far  as  the  individual 
householder  is  concerned. 

5.  By  discharging  the  liquid  waste  of 
the  whole  house  (through  suitable  flush- 
tanks  and  settling  cisterns)  into  a  system 
of  sub-irrigation-pipes  as  described  in  the 
paper  which  suggested  Mr.  Towne's  letter. 
Where  the  public  sewer  is  not  available,  I 
regard  this  as  much  the  best  device  of  all. 

I  see  no  escape  from  such  conditions  as 
the  above  paragraphs  indicate  as  neces- 
sary under  one  system  or  the  other.  With 
a  public  sewer,  the  soil-pipe  may  of  course 
leave  the  house  at  a  depth  of  four  feet  or 
more.  If  the  tight  cesspool  is  to  be  used, 
it  may  be  placed  so  far  underground  that 


the  same  depth  will  be  admissible;  but 
my  advice  would  usually  be  against  pro- 
viding for  any  such  accumulation  of  pu- 
trefying filth.  The  sort  of  gasometer  that 
the  dome  of  such  a  cesspool  would  furnish 
ought  not  to  be  an  adjunct  to  any  habita- 
tion. 

If  the  sub-irrigation  system  is  to  be 
used,  then  the  grade  must  be  made  to 
conform  to  it :  that  is  all  there  is  about  it. 
The  soil-pipe  cannot  leave  the  house  at  a 
depth  of  four  feet  below  the  level  of  the 
ground  to  be  used. 

Fortunately  this  is  not  necessary.  The 
ground  may  freeze  to  a  depth  of  four  feetj 
but  a  soil-pipe  drain  carrying  the  warm 
outflow  of  the  house  would  not  freeze  at  a 
depth  of  two  feet,  probably  not  at  consid- 
erably less  than  that.  My  own  house-drain 
is  •  only  two  feet  deep,  and  has  remained 
unaffected  when  the  ground  was  frozen 
solid  nearly  five  feet  deep.  My  irrigation- 
drains  have  worked  perfectly  in  the  cold- 
est weather,  at  a  depth  of  one  foot.  My 
flush-tank  stands  mainly  above  ground, 
outside  of  the  house,  and  is  only  protected 


84 

by  a  one-inch  board  "  dog-house  "  packed 
with  leaves. 

These  facts  indicate  that  much  less 
depth  is  needed  than  Mr.  Towne  suggests. 
And  the  fact  is  that  very  few  places,  even 
in  villages,  are  level:  there  is  usually  a 
slight  fall,  and  a  slight  fall  is  all  that  is 
needed.  Whatever  is  needed  must  be  fur- 
nished either  by  raising  the  house,  by 
lowering  the  ground,  or  by  adjusting  the 
level  of  the  pipes  to  suit  the  conditions. 
Ordinarily  a  little  skill  and  ingenuity  in 
such  matters  will  suffice  to  accomplish 
this.  I  have  not  as  yet  met  a  case  where 
there  was  any  serious  obstacle  to  be  over- 
come. 

W. 


January  13,  1877. 

MR.  WAKING'S  reply  to  my  query,  as  to 
the  best  mode  of  disposing  of  the  sewage 
of  country  houses  which  stand  on  level 
ground,  is  interesting,  but  by  no  means 
exhausts  the  subject. 

Of  the  five  systems   Mr.  Waring   enu- 


85 

merates,  the  first,  second  and  third,  are 
practically  excluded  from  consideration 
by  him  on  account  of  their  objections,  and 
the  fourth  (the  use  of  a  public  sewer)  is 
excluded  by  the  conditions  supposed  in 
my  query,  so  that  only  the  fifth  (the  sub- 
soil irrigation  system  of  Moule)  remains  ; 
and  to  this  Mr.  Waring  nails  his  colors 
with  the  remark  that  if  the  grade  does  not 
admit  of  this  system  it  "  must  be  made  to 
conform  it :  that  is  all  there  is  about  it."" 
This  position  I  think  is  hardly  tenable, 
however,  for  in  many  places  the  grade  is 
uncompromisingly  and  provokingly  level, 
and  cannot  be  altered,  as,  for  instance,  in 
such  districts  as  Central  New  Jersey  r 
where  in  some  towns  and  villages  the 
grade  does  not  vary  twenty  inches  in  the 
whole  place,  let  alone  within  the  bounds  of 
an  ordinary  house-lot  of  say  fifty  by  one 
hundred  and  fifty  feet.  In  such  cases  the 
sewage  could,  of  course,  be  collected  in  a 
tight  cesspool,  thence  pumped  into  a  raised 
flush-tank,  and  then  discharged  in  sub- 
soil irrigation  pipes:  but  this  plan  is  too 
expensive,  both  in  first  cost  and  in  oper- 


86 

ation,  to  admit  of  general  application,  and 
is  moreover  open  to  the  objections  Mr. 
Waring  makes  to  tight  cesspools.  And 
thus,  for  flat  grounds,  system  number  five 
is  also  in  many  cases  excluded. 

If  the  question  of  cost  be  ignored,  there 
is  little  difficulty  to  the  engineer  in  dealing 
with  the  problem  we  are  considering,  un- 
der any  conceivable  circumstances  ;  but  it 
must  be  remembered  that  cost  is  almost 
invariably  an  important  if  not  a  controlling 
element,  and  the  question  therefore  is: 
How,  at  reasonable  cost,  can  we  secure 
the  best  results  ? 

Now  I  believe  that  where,  as  I  have 
supposed,  there  is  a  street  water-supply  so 
that  we  need  not  fear  contamination  of 
drinking-water,  the  leaching  cesspool  prop- 
erly used  may,  notwithstanding  its  con- 
ceded objections,  be  our  best  reliance. 
The  condition  under  which  it  may  be 
resorted  to,  I  conceive  to  be  as  follows: 
It  should  be  located  as  far  from  the  house 
as  possible,  but  not  less  than  fifty  or  sixty 
feet,  and  should  be  carried  to  a  depth  of 
at  least  four  or  five  feet  below  the  mouth 


87 

of  the  discharging  sewer.  Its  diameter 
(as  dug)  for  an  ordinary  dwelling-house 
should  be  at  least  ten  feet ;  and  its  walls 
of  large,  loosely  fitted  stones,  should  be 
u  drawn  in "  from  a  point  just  above  the 
sewer  outlet  as  quickly  as  practicable,  so 
as  to  form  a  dome  entirely  covering  the 
cesspool,  above  which,  to  the  ground 
level,  the  excavation  should  be  filled  in 
with  clean  earth  in  which  vegetation 
should  be  encouraged. 

Before  closing  the  cesspool,  two  four  or 
or  six  inch  pipes  of  lead  or  galvanized 
sheet  iron  should  be  laid  in  place,  one 
reaching  down  almost  to  the  level  of  the 
sewer,  and  the  other  starting  from  the  apex 
of  the  dome.  These  pipes  should  be  led 
below  ground  to  some  convenient  point, 
and  then  carried  to  an  elevation  of  at  least 
eight  or  ten  feet  above  ground,  and  then 
capped  with  ventilating  cowls,  the  one 
leading  from  the  top  of  the  cesspool  hav- 
ing a  cowl  so  constructed  as  to  create  an 
upward  current  in  the  pipe,  the  other  hav- 
ing a  reversed  cowl,  like  a  "  wind-sail/' 
which  will  force  air  downward  into  the 


88 

cesspool.  By  this  means  we  prevent  any 
pressure  within  the  cesspool  or  sewer 
from  the  formation  of  gases  of  decompo- 
sition, and  also  provide  for  a  circulation 
of  air  within  the  cesspool  which  will  con- 
stantly dilute  and  carry  away  the  gaseous 
impurities. 

In  laying  the  sewer  or  drain  from  the 
cesspool  to  the  house,  the  precautions 
which  Mr.  Waring  suggests  should  be 
taken  to  secure  tight  joints  and  a  solid 
bed ;  a  good  running  trap  should  be  in- 
serted not  far  from  the  house  and  iron  soil- 
pipe  from  within  the  house  carefully  con- 
nected. Within  the  house,  the  soil-pipe 
itself  should  be  independently  ventilated 
by  carrying  its  upper  end  out  through  the 
roof,  and  making  an  opening  in  its  lower 
end  in  basement  to  complete  the  circula- 
tion. One  or  the  other  of  these  openings 
must  be  connected  with  the  kitchen  flue 
(in  which  there  is  always  a  fire),  and  the 
other  with  the  outer  air.  Thus  equipped, 
we  have  a  system  which  is  at  least  safe 
against  the  entrance  of  "  sewer  gas  "  by 
the  ordinarv  channels.  The  existence  of 


89 

any  pressure  within  the  soil-pipes  and 
drains  is  guarded  against,  and  the  system 
of  ventilation  provides  for  the  constant 
dilution  and  removal  of  gaseous  products 
of  decomposition  whether  produced  in  the 
cesspool  or  soil-pipes. 

The  remaining  sources  of  danger  are 
from  impure  "  ground  air,"  and  the  vitia- 
tion of  the  local  water.  The  latter  is  ad- 
mitted as  a  fact,  and  the  plan  under  dis- 
cussion is  recommended  only  where  the 
water-supply  is  brought  from  a  distant  and 
untainted  source.  The  former  only  need 
therefore  be  considered.  Now,  assuming 
a  moderately  pervious  soil  at  the  level  of 
the  bottom  of  the  cesspool  (and  without 
this  the  cesspool  soon  becomes  practically 
a  tight  one,)  the  purely  fluid  part  of  the 
sewage  will  probably  travel  a  long  way, 
indeed — will  mingle  with  the  subterranean 
streams  which  exist  in  almost  all  localities. 

But  it  should  be  remembered  that  all  of 
this  sewage  is  usually  enormously  diluted 
with  water,  that  we  have  provided  for  the 
removal  of  its  more  volatile  constituents, 
and  finally  that  the  liquid  portion  in  flow- 


90 

ing  away  passes  through  what  we  may 
regard  as  a  huge  filter  which  washes  out 
and  retains  the  remaining  organic  constitu- 
ents. So  long  as  the  surrounding  soil  is 
able  to  decompose  and  absorb  the  matter 
thus  committed  to  it,  no  danger  accrues. 
In  the  course  of  time,  however,  the  capac- 
ity of  the  surrounding  soil  is  exhausted ; 
and  the  gases  resulting  from  the  decompo- 
sition of  organic  impurities  begin  to  rise, 
unpurified  and  noxious,  through  the 'upper 
strata  of  the  soil. 

At  first  the  absorbent  and  disinfectant 
powers  of  the  latter  will  disarm  the  enemy  5 
"but  ultimately  the  impure  air  and  gases  we 
have  so  much  cause  to  dread  will  reach  the 
surface,  and  mingle  with  the  outer  air. 
But  when  this  is  the  case,  are  we  any 
worse  off  than  under  the  "  subsoil "  irriga- 
tion system  ?  With  that  all  the  decompo- 
sition occurs  at  the  surface  of  the  ground, 
and  dependence  is  placed  on  vegetation  and 
free  admixture  of  the  air  to  neutralize  its 
effects.  But  why  are  not  the  same  means 
to  be  equally  rehed  upon  for  neutralizing 
and  dispersing  the  products  of  decomposi- 


91 

tion  which  may  occur  at  a  greater  depth 
below  the  surface  ?  Probably  these  pro- 
ducts are  diffused  over  a  much  greater  area 
of  ground  on  reaching  the  surface  than 
they  would  be  under  the  other  system,  and 
are  already  diluted  and  partially  disarmed 
for  harm. 

One  caution  should  be  observed,  how- 
ever, where  this  plan  is  followed,  particu- 
larly where  the  cesspool  is  not  well 
removed  from  the  house ;  namely,  to 
guard  against  any  possible  rising  of  ema- 
nations from  the  ground  within  tlie  house, 
by  having  well-cemented  cellar  walls  and 
floor  (or,  better  still,  in  addition  to  these, 
an  open  area  around  the  house) ;  but  this 
precaution  is  one  that  ought  to  be  ob- 
served with  any  system,  and  in  all  houses. 

In  conclusion  let  me  say  that  the  above 
plan  is  only  suggested  for  houses  "  which 
stand  on  level  ground,"  and  which  have  a 
safe  and  abundant  water-supply.  For  more 
favorably  situated  cases,  better  plans,  no 
doubt,  are  available ;  but  for  the  case  I 
have  supposed,  I  have  seen  none  suggested 
by  which  at  moderate  cost  equal  safety 


92 

can  be  secured.  But  in  this  correspon- 
dence I  have  been  a  seeker  after  know- 
ledge, not  an  expounder  of  it ;  and  I  shall 
be  glad  to  iearn  of  better  plans  than  that 
I  suggested,  if  such  there  are. 

T. 


January  27,  1877. 

MR.  TOWNE  instances  the  case  of  a 
house  standing  on  level  ground,  such  as 
prevails  in  the  villages  of  Central  New 
Jersey,  and  suggests  the  course  to  be  pur- 
sued where  the  character  of  the  surface 
makes  it  impossible  to  secure  the  requisite 
fall  for  the  use  of  sub-irrigation  drains. 
He  supposes  the  case  of  u  an  ordinary 
house-lot,  say  fifty  by  a  hundred  and  fifty." 
Let  us  suppose,  by  way  of  illustration,  that 
the  rear  fifty  feet  of  such  a  lot  is  to  be  used 
for  the  disposal  of  sewage  by  underground 
land-drain  pipes.  One  of  the  conditions 
of  the  success  of  the  system  is  that  the 
slope  shall  not  be  too  great.  In  arrang- 
ing the  sewerage  of  Lenox,  Mass.,  where 


a  large  volume  will  be  distributed,  I  have 
taken  a  fall  of  one  in  three  hundred,  or 
four  inches  to  one  hundred  feet.  For  a 
private  place  where  the  wastes  of  a  single 
household  are  to  be  accommodated,  and 
where  the  flush-tank  would  not  discharge 
more  than  from  thirty  to  fifty  gallons  at  a 
time,  it  would  be  better  to  have  a  fall  of 
one  in  two  hundred,  or  six  inches  to  one 
hundred  feet.  More  than  this  would  be 
too  much ;  and  were  the  slope  greater,  I 
should  propose  to  lay  the  lines  011  a  course 
diagonal  to  the  inclination  of  the  land. 
The  reason  for  this  is,  that  if  the  inclina- 
tion is  greater,  the  flow  runs  too  rapidly 
to  the  far  ends  of  the  lines,  instead  of 
leaking  out  more  equally  at  each  joint  of 
its  course. 

To  provide  a  fall  of  one  in  two  hundred 
on  the  rear  fifty  feet  of  a  level  lot,  would 
require  a  slope  of  only  three  inches,  which 
could  be  made  by  handling  an  average 
depth  of  one  and  a  half  inches  over  the 
whole,  or  only  about  three  hundred  cubic 
feet  of  earth — an  amount  less  than  the  or- 
dinary modifications  in  grade  of  any  toler- 


94 

ably  finished  house-lot.  Indeed,  a  part  of 
the  slope  required  could  be  given  in  the 
drains  themselves,  as  there  probably  would 
be  no  disadvantage  in  making  them  a  little 
more  or  a  little  less  than  twelve  inches 
deep  at  their  ends. 

I  trust  that  this  explains  my  statement 
that  there  is  no  practical  difficulty  in  ar- 
ranging for  the  application  of  this  system, 
even  on  level  ground.  Of  course,  provis- 
ion must  be  made  to  deliver  the  soil-pipe, 
or  the  outlet  of  the  flush-tank,  at  a  point 
sufficiently  high  to  reach  these  drains; 
but  there  is  not  the  least  difficulty  in 
doing  this.  The  question  of  cost,  so  far 
from  being  "ignored,"'  is  a  leading  argu- 
ment in  favor  of  the  irrigation-drain  sys- 
tem; for  in  no  other  way,  even  on  level 
ground,  can  the  problem  be  so  cheaply 
solved. 

Mr.  Towne's  suggestion  for  a  leaching 
cesspool  is  simply  inadmissible.  I  am 
confident  that  no  sanitarian,  who  has  kept 
himself  at  all  well  informed  of  the  pro- 
gress of  knowledge  on  this  subject  would 
permit  the  use  of  this  device.  The  sug- 


95 

gestions  for  the  construction  and  ventila- 
tion of  such  a  cesspool  are  practical  and 
good  in  their  way ;  but  the  objection  to  it  is 
radical,  and  cannot  be  overcome.  There 
are  many  conditions  where,  so  far  as  the 
immediate  occupant  of  the  house  is  con- 
cerned, no  harm  may  be  done;  and  of 
course  in  the  country,  where  the  excava- 
tion is  made  at  a  distance  from  any  proba- 
ble future  house  site,  there  is  less  to  be 
said  against  it.  But  in  any  congregation 
of  houses  in  a  town  or  village,  the  public 
authorities  should  strictly  prohibit  any 
such  fouling  of  the  earth. 

If  the  soil  is  so  tight  that  there  is  no 
leaching,  then,  however  loose  the  wall, 
there  is  no  escape  of  the  liquid.  If 
through  sand,  gravel,  porous  strata,  fis- 
sures in  rock,  or  any  other  means  of  es- 
cape, the  liquid  soaks  away,  we  may  be 
quite  sure  that  it  will  carry  filth  to 
greater  and  greater  distances  as  time  goes 
on  ;  and,  as  the  soil  becomes  foul,  it  will 
retain  the  objectionable  or  dangerous  in- 
gredients. Deep  down  in  the  earth,  away 
from  the  action  of  the  atmosphere,  we 


96 

lose  the  effect  of  the  cleansing  oxidation  of 
the  air,  and  of  the  action  of  roots,  which  are 
the  best  agents  in  purifying  all  manner  of 
sewage.  In  fact,  the  objection  is  a  radi- 
cal one. 

We  cannot  safely  retain  on  our  premis- 
es a  putrefying  mass  of  organic  filth ;  and 
our  own  safety,  and  the  safety  of  the 
community,  require  that  we  shall  not  pour 
this  filth  into  unknown  subterranean  re- 
cesses, from  which  it  may  taint  the  water 
of  the  wells  and  the  ground-air  under 
houses. 

Mr.  Towne  suggests  the  cementing  of 
cellar  floors  as  a  safeguard  against  the 
rising  of  foul  air  into  the  house.  To  ac- 
complish this  end,  such  cementing  must 
be  -absolutely  tight,  and  the  same  tight- 
ness must  be  given  to  the  surrounding 
wall.  Both  of  these  conditions  are  im- 
portant to  the  best  building,  but  they  are 
often  neglected  for  the  sake  of  economy. 
So  far  as  the  drainage  question  is  con- 
cerned, they  would  cost  much  more  than 
would  the  adoption  of  the  irrigation-drain 
system,  even  including  the  slight  modifi- 


97 

cation  of  grade  that  this  might  make 
necessary. 

Mr.  Towne  asks,  Why  are  we  worse  off 
with  the  exhalations  from  leaching  into 
the  deep  soil  (and  under  our  houses)  than 
with  the  irrigation  system  where  the 
whole  of  the  decomposition  takes  place 
close  on  the  surface  of  the  ground  ? 

Precisely  because  of  the  difference  be- 
tween a  decomposition  taking  place  in  the 
absence  of  fresh  air  and  roots  and  the 
rapid  and  destructive  process  which  these 
agencies  insure.  The  most  serious  evils 
may  result  from  the  putrefaction  of  or- 
ganic matters  stored  in  large  masses,  or 
closely  covered  from  the  air.  The  same 
materials  consumed  by  the  concentrated 
oxygen  of  aerated  earth,  especially  when 
an  active  vegetation  stands  ready  to  take 
up  the  results  of  the  decomposition,  pro- 
duce no  hurtful  result. 

W. 


February  3,  1877. 

THE  communications  printed  in  a  recent 
issue  of  your  journal,  from  Mr.  Waring, 
jun.,  and  Mr.  Towne,  discussing  the  drain- 
age of  houses  on  level  ground,  have  raised 
a  question  of  great  interest,  and  I  ask 
permission  to  say  a  few  words  on  the 
same  subject. 

There  are  situations  and  conditions 
which  render  practicable  the  system  of 
house-drainage  preferred  by  Col.  Waring, 
which  disposes  of  the  liquid  waste  of  the 
house  by  means  of  flush-tanks,  settling  cis- 
terns, and  irrigation-pipes.  I  have  em- 
ployed this  system,  somewhat  modified,  in 
draining  my  own  country  house,  which 
stands  on  high  ground,  and  has  a  sloping 
lawn  of  more  than  a  hundred  feet  width, 
in  the  best  position  for  the  accommodation 
of  irrigation  pipes.  I  do  not  believe,  how- 
ever, that  the  system  is  one  which  admits 
of  general  adoption,  nor  one  which  will 
meet  the  requirements  of  most  household- 
ers living  within  the  narrow  limits  of  town 
or  village  lots.  Even  where  practicable,  it 
does  not  seem  to  me  to  possess  the  theo- 


99 

retical  excellence  which  is  claimed  for  it. 
In  summer,  when  evaporation  is  rapid  and 
vegetation  active,  it  is  possible  that  the  or- 
ganic matter  in  the  waste  of  a  house  would 
be  taken  up  and  assimilated  by  plants  as 
rapidly  as  it  could  decompose  in  the  soil ; 
but  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  even  this  is 
true  in  all  soils. 

I  have  watched  very  carefully  the  work- 
ngs  of  the  system  in  my  own  grounds ; 
and  while  the  lines  of  drain-pipe  are  laid 
within  eighteen  inches  of  the  surface, 
which  is  quite  even.  I  have  failed  to  dis- 
cover any  indications  of  a  more  rapid  or 
luxuriant  growth  of  grass  or  weeds  near 
the  pipes  than  remote  from  them.  If, 
however,  it  be  conceded  that  the  system 
works  well  in  summer  under  average  con- 
ditions, I  fail  to  see  that  my  buried  pipes 
are  much — if  any — better  than  a  leaching 
cesspool  during  the  winter  months,  when 
the  ground  is  frozen  and  vegetation  dor- 
mant. 

During  this  time  the  ground  surround- 
ing, and  particularly  that  underlying  the 
pipes,  becomes  charged  with  impurities 


100 

which  it  cannot  dispose  of  in  a  legitimate 
way.  Long  before  they  can  be  appropri- 
ated by  growing  plants,  thawing  snows 
and  soaking  rains  carry  these  impurities 
deep  into  the  soil  where  the  plants  cannot 
reach  them.  In  a  light  porous  soil  there 
is  nothing  to  hinder  these  accumulations 
of  six  or  seven  months  of  each  year  from 
working  down  until  the  soil  is  saturated 
and  our  own  or  our  neighbors'  well  pol- 
luted. We  have,  in  the  Northern  States, 
only  about  five  months  of  warm  "  growing- 
weather  "  j  and  in  my  judgment,  draining 
into  the  soil  during  the  other  seven 
months  means  pollution  of  the  soil. 

From  a  careful  study  of  the  problen:  of 
house-drainage  in  unsewered  neighbor- 
hoods, I  am  satisfied  that  the  tight  cess- 
pool system  is  the  only  one  which  is  prac- 
ticable. I  have  many  times  during  the 
past  few  years  had  occasion  to  recommend 
a  plan  of  drainage  which  has  the  advan- 
tage of  adaptation  to  all  the  conditions  I 
have  yet  encountered  in  practice.  It  is 
neither  an  invention  nor  a  discovery  j  but 
in  these  matters  the  attainment  of  good 


101 

results  is  of  much  more  consequence  than 
novelty  or  ingenuity  in  the  means  em- 
ployed. I  contract  with  a  responsible 
mason  to  build  a  cesspool  as  "tight  as  a 
bottle."  The  price  depends  somewhat 
upon  circumstances ;  but  as  I  select  my 
mason  and  give  him  to  understand  that 
he  is  to  estimate  honestly  on  the  cost  of 
first-class  materials  und  workmanship,  and 
not  as  a  competitor  for  a  contract  to  be 
given  to  the  lowest  bidder,  the  price  is 
usually  reasonable  and  the  work  always 
good. 

When  there  is  plenty  of  room,  I  put  the 
cesspool  from  fifty  to  sixty  feet  from  the 
house ;  when  the  lot  is  small,  I  put  it  as 
far  away  as  I  can.  In  shape  the  cesspool 
is  much  like  an  old  fashioned  coffee-cup  j 
its  size,  taking  an  average,  is  five  feet  di- 
ameter at  top,  and  six  feet  deep.  I  cover 
this  with  a  stout  platform,  removable  at 
will,  from  the  middle  of  which  rises  a  wood- 
en chimney  ten  or  twelve  inches  square  in 
cross  section,  and  three  to  five  feet  high, 
capped  with  one  of  Mr.  Baldwin  Latham's 
charcoal  ventilators,  or  with  a  device  em- 


102 

bodying  the  same  principle.  At  one  side 
of  the  platform  I  set  a  pump — any  one  of 
several  makes  is  adapted  to  the  purpose — 
and  run  the  suction-pipe  down  to  the  bot- 
tom of  the  cesspool.  This  pump  is  a  per- 
manent fixture,  and  is  always  ready  for  use. 
The  house  connection  is  made  in  the  usual 
way ;  but  I  have  no  traps  at  any  point  on 
the  line  of  the  main  waste  or  soil-pipe,  or 
the  house-drain  proper.  The  soil-pipe  is 
carried  up  of  one  size  from  the  foundation 
wall  to  and  through  the  roof.  The  branch 
waste-pipes  are  of  course  trapped  •  but  I 
take  the  precaution  to  use  traps  which 
cannot  lose  their  seals  from  any  cause 
except  evaporation.  The  danger  to  be 
apprehended  from  the  absorption  and 
transmission  of  cesspool  gases  by  the 
water-seal  of  such  traps  is  obviously  very 
slight,  at  most.  With  the  house-drainage 
system  open  at  both  ends,  no  accumula- 
tion of  gases  at  any  point  where  they  can 
be  held  under  pressure  is  possible. 

When  the  cesspool  is  full,  it  can  be 
emptied  in  any  way  most  convenient.  In 
a  town  or  village  where  an  odorless  ex- 


103 

cavator  can  be  ordered,  it  may  be  emptied 
by  lifting  out  the  ventilating  chimney,  and 
dropping  the  suction-pipe  of  the  apparatus 
through  the  hole  in  the  platform.  If  the 
householder  must  attend  to  the  work  him- 
self, he  can  do  it  in  one  or  two  ways,  ac- 
cording to  circumstances.  In  summer,  if 
he  has  a  garden,  he  may  employ  it  for 
surface-irrigation.  He  can  make  a  trough 
by  nailing  two  boards  together  at  right 
angles,  and,  putting  one  end  of  this  iinder 
the  spout  of  his  pump,  let  the  other  end 
rest  where  the  water  will  do  most  good. 
By  providing  two  or  three  such  troughs 
made  of  long  boards,  he  can  irrigate  a 
garden  of  considerable  extent,  and  as  fre- 
quently as  may  be  needed.  The  organic 
matter  already  partially  decomposed  will 
be  at  once  taken  up  by  the  plants  j  and 
the  water  is  quickly  absorbed  by  the  dry 
surface  soil,  to  be  given  off  again  in  evap- 
oration. In  the  winter,  or  in  places  where 
irrigation  is  not  needed  for  the  fertilization 
of  a  well-kept  garden,  the  contents  of  the 
cesspool  must  be  pumped  into  tight  ves- 
sels of  some  sort,  and  carried  away.  A 


104 

short  piece  of  rubber  tubing  attached  to 
the  spout  of  the  pumps,  and  half  a  dozen 
kerosene-barrels  with  tight-fitting  bungs, 
will  give  the  householder  an  odorless  ex- 
cavator of  his  own. 

Concerning  the  views  expressed  by  my 
very  intelligent  friend  Mr.  Towne,  I  can 
only  say  that,  in  my  judgment,  the  leach- 
ing cesspool  system  is  the  worst  which 
can  be  employed  under  any  circumstances. 
I  lately  visited  a  town  in  which  this  sys- 
tem is  carried  out  par  excellence.  The  town 
is  built  upon  a  limestone  foundation, 
which  is  full  of  cracks  and  fissures-;  and, 
to  dispose  of  anything  in  the  shape  of 
waste,  it  is  only  necessary  to  dig  down 
twenty  or  thirty  feet,  until  the  limestone 
is  reached.  Even  privy-vaults  empty 
themselves.  The  town  has  a  water-supply 
drawn  from  sources  not  reached  by  the 
pollution  of  the  soil ;  but  within  three 
years  it  has  had  two  epidemics  of  typhoid 
fever,  and  is  never  free  from  sickness  of 
unmistakable  zymotic  origin.  We  must 
not  forget  that,  in  pouring  sewage  into 
the  soil,  we  are  poisoning  it  for  the  future, 


105 

near  and  remote.  Coming  generations  will 
suffer,  even  if  we  do  not,  the  consequences 
of  so  reckless  a  disregard  of  the  precau- 
tions which  the  experience  of  centuries 
has  shown  to  be  essential  to  the  avoidance 
of  conditions  prejudicial  to  the  public 
health. 

B. 

NEW  YORK,  Jan.  22,  1877. 


March  10,  1877. 

I  WAS  much  interested  in  the  courteous 
responses  of  CoL  Waring  and  Mr.  Towne 
to  my  letter  on  the  drainage  of  country 
houses,  published  in  your  issue  of  Feb.  3, 
and  regret  that  I  could  not  find  time  for 
an  immediate  reply. 

I  cannot  wholly  agree  with  Col.  Wai-ing's 
views  respecting  the  absorptive  and  oxi- 
dizing power  of  the  soil,  without  taking 
certain  well  denned  exceptions  to  his  very 
general  conclusions.  A  full  discussion  of 
the  points  at  issue  must  be  more  appro- 
priate to  the  columns  of  an  agricultural 


106 

journal  than  to  one  devoted  to  architecture ; 
but  as  architecture  and  drainage  are  of 
necessity  closely  allied,  the  subject  pos- 
sesses a  practical  interest  for  a  very  large 
proportion  of  your  readers. 

In  my  judgment,  formed  after  some  ob- 
servation, the  adaptation  of  the  soakage 
system  to  house  drainage  depends  upon  a 
variety  of  conditions,  primarily  upon  the 
character  of  the  soil.  If  I  attach  more 
importance  to  the  action  of  vegetation  than 
Col.  Waring  does,  he  attaches  more  impor- 
tance to  the  powers  of  the  soil  and  its 
contained  oxygen  than  I  do.  In  his 
communication  published  in  your  issue 
of  Jan.  27,  he  speak  of  the  "  concen- 
trated oxygen  of  aerated  earth.'*  I  have 
never  found  any  satisfactory  evidence 
of  the  fact  that  oxygen  is  concentrated 
in  the  soil.  Oxidation  is  unquestionably 
promoted  by  looseness  of  the  soil;  but 
this  same  condition  favors  the  escape 
of  gases  resulting  from  the  decomposition 
of  organic  matter,  and  those  most  pro- 
ductive of  disease  are  not,  so  far  as  I 
know,  appropriated  by  vegetation.  In 


10? 

assuming  that  the  character  of  the  soil  is  of 
secondary  importance  as  concerns  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  soakage  system,  Col.  Waring 
seems  to  contradict  himself.  Very  little  air 
permeates  a  stiff  clay  soil,  as  he  practic- 
ally admits.  Heavy  clay  soils  do  not  in 
themselves  exert  a  stronger  absorptive 
action  than  porous  soils.  The  absorptive 
powers  of  clay  are  only  manifest  when  it 
is  finely  divided,  as  when  burned  or  in- 
timately commingled  with  the  looser  com- 
ponents of  a  light  loam. 

The  experiment  of  straining  dung-liquor 
through  soil  does  not  prove  much,  if  any- 
thing, as  regards  the  subject  under  con- 
sideration. The  solid  matter  is  simply 
removed  by  the  ordinary  process  of  filtra- 
tion, and  under  the  combined  influence 
of  heat,  moisture,  and  air,  it  would  quick- 
ly ferment.  That  "Organic  matter  once 
seized  upon  by  the  soil  is  never  again 
given  up  in  an  unchanged  condition,"  is 
not,  I  think,  established.  I  know  of  one 
case  where  carrots  planted  in  ground 
fertilized  with  material  freshly  removed 


108 

from  an  old  privy- vault,  were  wholly  unfit 
for  food.  Washed  clean  and  cut  with  a 
knife,  they  were  unhealthy  in  appearance 
and  offensive  in  sinelL  As  to  the  "un- 
yielding grip  of  the  interior  surfaces  of 
the  soil  to  prevent  added  organic  matter 
from  working  downward,"  I  fear  there  is 
some  room  for  doubt.  It  is  certainly  dif- 
ficult to  reconcile  the  proposition  with  the 
fact  that  the  roots  of  plants  follow  the 
deposition  of  organic  matter,  and  as  in  the 
deepened  soil  of  the  Mapes'  farm  in  New 
Jersey,  extend  to  twice  the  depth  usually 
reached  by  the  roots  of  such  plants,  in 
stiff  soils,  manifestly  because  the  manure 
had  worked  down  as  the  depth  of  the  soil 
was  increased. 

There  is  a  limit  to  the  absorptive  powers 
of  every  thing.  Even  charcoal  has  its 
limits,  although  its  powers  are  to  some 
extent  self -renewing.  So  it  is  with  the 
soil.  When  the  surface  is  ice-bound  there 
is  little  opportunity  for  aeration.  If  un- 
frozen below,  it  is  likely  to  be  sodden 
from  preceding  rains,  and  under  such  cir- 


109 

cum  stances  the  destruction  of  organic 
matter  by  oxidation  would  proceed  but 
slowly. 

That  sewage  can  be  discharged  into  the 
soil  continuously,  without  ultimately  pol- 
luting it  to  considerable  depth  and  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  oxidizing  influence  of  the 
air,  I  cannot  believe.  It  is  no  uncommon 
thing  to  find  deep  wells  polluted  by  im- 
purities carried  down  from  the  surface. 
The  water  of  wells  sunk  near  barnyards  is 
often  unfit  for  use,  even  when  danger  of 
contamination  by  the  flow  in  of  unfil- 
tered  surface-water  is  effectually  guarded 
against.  On  this  point  the  experiments 
of  Dr.  Lissauer,  as  translated  from  Deutsche 
Vierteljahr  schrit  in  the  Proceedings  of  the 
Institution  of  Civil  Engineers,  are  not 
without  interest.  The  results  of  fifty-one 
experiments  to  determine  the  absorptive 
power  of  soils  point  to  the  following  con- 
clusions, among  others: — 

"1.  The  liquid  entering  the  pores  of  the 
soil  displaces  the  air  or  liquid  previously 
present,  forcing  the  former  upwards  into 


110 

the  atmosphere,  and  the  latter  downwards 
into  the  subsoil  or  effluent  water. 

"  2.  In  order  that  the  effluent  water  may 
not  be  directly  polluted  by  the  sewage  liq- 
uid, the  maximum  supply  of  the  latter 
must  not  be  more  than  can  be  taken  up 
by  the  pores  of  the  soil. 

"3.  Dry,  loamy  soil  absorbs  more  than 
peaty  soil  and  gives  up  less,  whilst  dry 
sandy  soil,  on  the  contrary,  absorbs  less 
and  gives  up  more.  Consequently  a  loamy 
soil,  though  it  absorbs  a  large  quantity  of 
liquid,  can  seldom  be  irrigated;  whereas 
a  sandy  soil,  though  it  absorbs  but  little, 
may  often  be  irrigated, 

"4.  The  looser  the  soil,  the  easier  water- 
courses are  formed  in  it,  and  therefore  the 
less  can  its  maximum  power  of  absorption 
be  approached :  otherwise  the  sewage  liq- 
uid might  penetrate  the  subsoil  before  the 
whole  of  the  ground  had  been  saturated. 

"5.  In  order  therefore  that  the  effluent 
water  may  be  protected  from  pollution,  it 
is  especially  necessary  that  the  absorptive 
power  of  the  soil  should  be  known  •  but 


Ill 

the  determination  is  of  no  value  unless  it 
be  made  in  a  sample  in  which  the  natural 
position  of  the  particles  of  earth  has  been 
undisturbed." 

I  have  no  desire  to  place  myself  in  a 
position  of  antagonism  to  the  system 
favored  and  defended  by  Col.  Waring  in 
his  several  communications.  I  consider  it 
good,  but  like  all  good  things  it  probably 
has  its  limitations.  It  rests  with  the 
engineer  and  the  architect  to  intelligently 
determine  what  these  are. 

In  Mr.  Towne's  letter,  I  find  some  state- 
ments which  indicate  that  he  has  reasoned 
from  imperfect  data.  The  consumption 
of  water  in  cities  is  certainly  no  standard 
by  which  to  judge  the  consumption  per 
head  in  country  houses  depending  upon 
wells  and  cisterns ;  and  I  refer  him  to 
Col.  Waring's  last  letter  for  an  estimate, 
which,  though  very  liberal,  is  more  nearly 
correct.  As  regards  cesspool  capacity,  it 
must,  of  course,  depend  somewhat  upon 
circumstances.  A  nine-hundred-gallon  ca- 
pacity is  by  no  means  an  arbitrary  stand- 
ard. Speaking  generally,  it  is  safe  to  say 


112 

that  the  smaller  the  cesspool  the  better, 
inasmuch  as  it  requires  to  be  emptied  the 
oftener.  The  conservation  of  filth  under 
conditions  favorable  to  the  exercise  of  its 
power  for  mischief  is  never  desirable. 
Eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of  good 
health  j  and  I  have  yet  to  see  a  drainage 
system  applicable  to  isolated  country 
houses  which  can  be  left  to  take  care  of 
itself  without  sooner  or  later  becoming  a 
nuisance  and  a  danger.  I  should  never 
drain  roofs  or  carry  storm-water  from  any 
shedding  surface  into  a  cesspool  which 
also  received  the  house- waste ;  and  the 
danger  of  overflow  from  this  cause  need 
not  be  taken  into  account. 

B. 


March  24,  1877. 

MR.  BAYLES  intimates  that  the  reason- 
ing contained  in  my  last  communication 
was  predicated  on  "imperfect  data,"  for  the 
reason  that  "  the  consumption  of  water  in 
cities  is  certainly  no  standard  by  which  to 
judge  the  consumption  per  head  in  coun- 


113 

try  houses  depending  upon  wells  and  cis- 
terns"; and  he  refers  to  Col.  Waring's 
estimate  as  more  nearly  correct.  My 
statement  gave  an  average  consumption 
per  head  per  day  of  thirty-eight  gallons ; 
while  Col.  Waring's  (in  referring  to  a  case 
in  which  "there  is  no  public  water-sup- 
ply") was  thirty  gallons.  But  by  reference 
to  my  letter  of  Dec.  16,  1876,  with  which 
this  discussion  commenced,  Mr.  Bayles 
will  learn  that  the  question  therein  pro- 
posed was  that  of  "the  disposition  of  sew- 
age from  a  country  house,  where  there  is 
no  town  drainage  available,  where  the 
surrounding  grounds  are  level,  and  where 
there  is  a  street  water-supply"  On  these 
data  I  maintain  that  my  reasoning  was 
correct ;  and,  indeed,  my  own  observation 
is  to  the  effect  that  where  there  is  an  abun- 
dant water  service,  the  average  consump- 
tion per  head  is  usually  much  more  than 
thirty-eight  gallons  daily. 

The  problem  I  originally  suggested  is 
one  of  great  importance;  but  I  think  it 
has  been  somewhat  lost  sight  of  in  some 
of  the  recent  communications.  In  my 


114 

own  limited  experience  I  know  of  four 
towns,  the  populations  of  which  range 
from  3,000  to  10,000,  in  which  a  public 
water-supply  has  been  introduced  for 
years  without  any  corresponding  provision 
for  the  removal  of  sewage.  Indeed  even 
the  city  of  New  Haven,  which  has  long 
had  a  water-supply,  was  only  efficiently 
sewered  within  the  past  eight  years. 

Without  discussion  I  will  concede  that 
these  conditions  are  intolerable,  that  a 
sewerage  system  should  be  contempora- 
neous with  a  water  service,  and  that  the 
introduction  of  the  latter  should  in  many 
instances  be 'legally  prohibited  unless  ac- 
companied by  the  former ;  but  this  does 
not  alter  the  fact  that  in  hundreds  of 
places,  precisely  these  most  objectionable 
conditions  obtain,  and  probably  will  obtain 
for  years  to  come.  The  question  I  have 
asked  is,  How,  under  these  conditions, 
and  at  moderate  cost,  can  the  average 
householder  make  himself  most  secure 
against  zymotic  diseases  originating  from 
decomposing  sewage '? 

Mr.  Bayles  adds  other  pertinent  objec- 


115 

tions  to  those  I  have  previously  made 
against  the  irrigation-system  urged  by 
Col.  Waring  as  so  universally  applicable ; 
and  I  think  it  must  be  conceded  that  this 
system  cannot  be  extensively  relied  upon 
for  use  on  private  grounds  of  small  extent, 
particularly  in  our  Northern  States.  At 
the  risk  o£  appearing  too  confident  in  my 
own  judgment,  as  opposed  to  that  of  per- 
sons who  have  made  a  much  more  thor- 
ough study  of  this  subject  than  I  have 
been  able  to,  I  will  say  further,  that  the 
alternative  system  to  which  Mr.  Bayles 
has  committed  himself — viz.,  the  use  of 
tight  cesspools — seems  to  be  equally  inad- 
missible, for  the  reasons  stated  in  my  let- 
ter published  in  your  number  of  17th  ult. 
This  is  eminently  a  case  in  which  it  is 
easier  to  make  objections  than  to  give 
advice;  but  the  subject  is  one,  the  impor- 
tance of  which,  although  but  little  recog- 
nized, cannot  be  over-estimated;  and  I 
sincerely  trust  that  its  discussion  in  you? 
columns  may  lead  to  a  better  solution  of 
it  than  has  yet  been  offered. 

T. 


116 

April  14,  1877. 

I  TRUST  that  your  readers  are  not  tiring 
of  this  discussion,  for — unlike  Mr.  Bayles 
— I  think  it  quite  as  appropriate,  even  in* 
its  agricultural  details,  to  an  architect's 
as  to  a  farmer's  paper.  The  question  as  to 
the  action  of  the  soil,  and  of  the  air  which 
it  contains,  upon  organic  impurities  added 
to  it,  is  equally  important  whether  we 
are  considering  the  effect  of  this  action  in 
preparing  food  for  plants,  or  in  removing 
conditions  dangerous  to  health.  It  has  its 
sanitary  side,  and  so  claims  the  attention 
of  the  architect — the  practical  sanitarian. 
It  is  to  be  understood  that  what  I  propose 
is  not  a  "soakage"  system,  but  something 
that  stops  so  far  short  of  saturation  that  in 
an  extreme  case,  as  per  my  communication, 
only  about  one  volume  of  liquid  is  added, 
per  day,  to  over  three  hundred  volumes  of 
earth.  The  importance  attaching  to  the 
soil  as  an  agent  of  disinfection  is  due  to 
its  known  powers  of  absorption  and  to  the 
oxidizing  effect  of  its  contained  air.  "  Sat- 
isfactory evidence  of  the  fact  that  oxygen 
is  concentrated  in  the  soil"  is  to  be  found 


117 

in  the  recorded  testimony  of  many  investi- 
gators in  the  field  of  agricultural  physics. 
Prof.  Johnson,  of  New  Haven,  says  :* 
"  The  soil,  being  eminently  porous,  con- 
denses oxygen.  Blumtritt  and  Reichardt 
indeed,  found  no  considerable  amount  of 
condensed  oxygen  in  most  of  the  soils,  and 
substances  they  examined;  but  the  ex- 
periments of  Stenhouse  and  the  well- 
known  deodorizing  effects  of  the  soil 
upon  faecal  matters  leave  no  doubt  as  to 
the  fact.  The  condensed  oxygen  must 
usually  expend  itself  in  chemical  action. 
Its  proportion  would  appear  not  to  be 
large ;  but  being  replaced  as  rapidly  as  it 
enters  into  combination,  the  total  quantity 
absorbed  may  be  considerable.  Organic 
matters  and  lower  oxides  are  thereby  ox- 
idized. Carbon  is  converted  into  carbonic 
acid,  hydrogen  into  water,  protoxide  of 
iron  into  peroxide.  The  upper  portions  of 
the  soil  are  constantly  suffering  change  by 
the  action  of  free  oxygen,  so  long  as  any  ox- 
idizable  matters  exist  in  them." 

*  How  Crops  Feed,  p.  218. 


118 

Schubler  says:*  "The  earths  possess 
the  remarkable  property  of  absorbing 
oxygen  gas  from  the  atmospheric  air,  a 
phenomenon  pointed  out  many  years  ago, 
by  A.  von  Humboldt  ....  This  property 
of  the  earths  is  confirmed  almost  without 
an  exception,  provided  they  be  employed 
for  this  purpose  in  a  moist  state."  In  the 
experiments  which  he  instituted,  exposing 
one  thousand  grains  of  different  earths  for 
thirty  days  in  vessels  of  fifteen  inches 
cubic  contents  (15  inches  of  air  containing 
3.15inches  of  oxygen)  he  found  that  sandy 
loam  absorbed  1.39  inches  of  oxygen,  clay 
loam  absorbed  1.65  inches  and  garden 
mould  absorbed  2.60  inches. 

This  looks  very  much  like  concentra- 
tion. All  authorities  agree  in  ascribing 
this  power  of  condensing  oxygen  (and 
other  gases)  to  all  materials  very  much 
in  proportion  to  their  porosity.  As  char- 
coal is  very  porous,  this  is  usually  taken 
as  an  illustration.  Voelcker  says  :  t  u  It 
[charcoal]  possesses  the  power  not  only  of 

•Journal  Royal  Agricultural  Society,  vol.  i.,  p.  197. 
t  Latham's  Sanitary  Engin  ering,  p.  236. 


119 

absorbing  certain  smelling  gases,  sulphur- 
etted hydrogen  and  ammonia,  but  also  of 
destroying  the  gases  thus  absorbed;  for 
otherwise  its  purifying  action  would  soon 
be  greatly  impaired.  It  is  very  porous, 
and  its  pores  are  filled  with  condensed 
oxygen  to  the  extent  of  eight  times  its 
bulk. 

"We  have  therefore,  in  charcoal  oxygen 
gas  (which  supports  combustion  or  lights 
fires)  in  a  condensed  or  more  active  con- 
dition than  in  the  common  air  which  we 
breathe.  Hence  it  is  that  organic  matter 
in  contact  with  charcoal  is  so  rapidly 
destroyed.  The  beauty  of  charcoal  is  that 
the  destruction  takes  place  imperceptibly  ? 
and  that  its  power  of  burning  organic 
matter  is  continually  renewed  by  the  sur- 
rounding atmosphere  so  that  it  is  a  con- 
stant carrier  of  atmospheric  oxygen  in  a 
condensed  state  in  its  pores.  The  oxygen 
that  acts  on  organic  matter  and  burns  it 
up  is  speedily  replaced,  and  the  process 
goes  on  continually.  Hence  it  is  that  a 
comparatively  small  quantity  of  wood  or 


120 

peat  charcoal  is  capable  of  destroying  a 
very  large  quantity  of  organic  matter.'' 

Johnson,  after  describing  and  illustrat- 
ing this  action  of  porous  substances, 
says :  *  "  The  soil  absorbs  putrid  and 
other  disagreeable  effluvia,  and  undoubt- 
edly oxidizes  them  like  charcoal,  though 
perhaps  with  less  energy  than  the  last- 
named  substance,  as  would  be  anticipated 
from  its  inferior  porosity."  Jamieson  says,t 
''All  porous  bodies  which  offer  a  consider- 
able surface  to  gases  act  like  charcoal.'7 
Saussure  says  that  charcoal  absorbs  nine 
and  a  quarter  times  its  bulk  of  oxygen. 
Prof.  Way  says  :  £  "  The  reason  that  the 
sand  accelerates  the  fermentation  of  the 
urine  is  no  doubt  this  :  all  bodies  possess 
a  surface  attraction  for  gases,  and  of 
course  therefore  for  common  air.  This 
attraction,  which  enables  tliem  to  condense  a 
certain  quantity  of  air  on  their  surfaces,  is  in 
direct  relation  to  those  surfaces."  Way 

*  How  Crops  Feed,  pp.  170,  171. 

t  Journal  Royal  Agricultural  Society,  vol.  xvii.,  p.  448. 
%  Journal  Royal  Agricultural  Society,  vol.  ii.,  p.  366  -t. 
infra. 


121 

filtered  sewer-water  through  six  inches  of 
soil.  In  two  and  a  half  hours  he  collected 
half  a  gallon,  which  he  analyzed.  It  con- 
tained no  potash,  "  no  ammonia  or  nitrogen 
in  any  form."  The  original  liquid  contain- 
ed over  three  hundred  grains  to  the  gallon 
of  organic  matter  and  salts  of  ammonia." 
He  found  the  absorption  to  extend  to  a 
weight  of  sewage-water  more  than  equal  to 
the  weight  of  the  soil.  This,  be  it  remem- 
bered, was  an  instantaneous  mixture,  with 
no  opportunity  for  a  constantly  renewed 
oxidizing  action. 

That  the  soil  absorbs  the  products  of 
the  decomposition  of  organic  matter,  and 
carries  the  decomposition  to  completeness  r 
no  chemist  would  question.  This  action 
is  the  basis  of  the  efficiency  of  the  earth- 
closet.  In  my  own  experiment,  an  analy- 
sis of  the  earth  and  ashes  used  in  earth- 
closets  for  six  years  (probably  ten  times 
over)  showed  that  practically  all  of  the 
eight  hundred  pounds  of  solid  dry  matter 
estimated  to  have  been  deposited  during 
the  six  years  was  destroyed  by  oxidation 


122 

as  completely  as  it  would  have  been  by 
actual  burning  in  a  furnace. 

The  investigations  of  Way  and  Thomp- 
son fully  determine  the  retention  of  im- 
purities by  the  soil — an  action  which  they 
ascribe  largely  to  the  double  silicates. 

The  porous  condition  of  the  soil  does  not 
favor  the  escape  of  gases.  On  the  con- 
trary, in  the  case  of  the  earth-closet,  dry 
and  porous  earth  completely  arrests  the 
escape  of  gases,  as  is  demonstrated  both 
by  the  absence  of  smell,  and  by  the  ab- 
sence of  chemical  reaction.  If  the  quan- 
tity of  decomposing  matter  is  large  and 
concentrated,  gas  may  be  formed  in  such 
volume  as  to  force  its  way  through,  but 
exhalation  does  not  occur.  It  is  not 
claimed  that  the  gases  which  are  most 
productive  of  disease  are  appropriated  by 
vegetation,  but  that  they  are  destroyed  by 
chemical  action — by  oxidation. 

The  report  of  Dr.  Mouat,  on  the  effect 
of  the  use  of  the  earth-closet  in  the  gov- 
ernment institutions  of  India  in  time  of 
cholera,  is  conclusive,  at  least  so  far  as 


123 

this  disease  is  concerned.*  All  recorded 
evidence  as  to  the  use  of  the  earth-closet 
in  stopping  the  spread  of  disease  is  to  the 
same  effect. 

I  believe  that  I  only  u  seem"  to  contra- 
dict myself.  Loose  soils  are  more  freely 
permeated  by  atmospheric  air  and  heavy 
clays  are  more  retentive  of  organic  impur- 
ities presented  in  solution.  The  air  in  the 
loose  soil  oxidizes,  and  the  double  silicates 
in  the  clay  have  other  chemical  action. 
There  is  air  in  all  soils  sufficient  to  care 
for  the  small  amount  of  impurities  dis- 
charged by  a  single  household  throughout 
the  mass,  underlying  twenty-five  hundred 
feet  of  surface ;  and  there  is  clay  enough 
to  have  an  important  effect  even  in  what 
is  called  sandy  loam. 

The  absorptive  powers  of  clay  are  man- 
ifest to  chemical  tests  even  when  solid 
lumps  of  it  are  penetrated  by  solutions  of 
nitrogenous  matter.  I  think  my  state- 
ment, that  "organic  matter  once  seized 
upon  by  the  soil  is  never  again  given  up 

•Twelfth    Report  of  the  Medical  officer  of  the  Privy 
Council,  pp.   104,   105. 


124 

in  an  unchanged  condition,"  is  the  state- 
ment of  an  established  fact — with  the 
limitation  that  after  the  soil  is  saturated,  it 
cannot  "  seize  upon  "  new  supplies  until 
the  first  supply  has  become  chemically 
changed.  On  the  Mapes'  Farm  in  New 
Jersey — where,  by  the  way,  I  was  a  pupil 
in  1853 — the  manure  was  ploughed  down, 
and  the  deposition  of  organic  matter  in 
the  subsoil  was  mainly  due  to  the  decom- 
position of  the  roots  of  crops,  which  (like 
clover)  have  the  power  of  deep  penetra- 
tion. In  the  clay  subsoil  of  the  richest  and 
oldest  garden,  we  find  no  evidence  that  or- 
ganic matter  has  ever  "worked  down"  into 
it;  on  the  contrary,  we  know  that,  as  "or- 
ganic" matter,  it  does  not  do  so  even  in 
nearly  pure  sand  or  gravel. 

Of  course  "there  is  a  limit  to  the  ab- 
sorptive powers  of  everything  " — a  limit  to 
every  thing,  in  fact, — but  that  limit  in  the 
soil  is,  in  my  opinion,  very  far  beyond  the 
needs  of  the  case  in  hand.  So,  too,  the 
"some  extent"  of  the  renewal  of  absorp- 
tive power  is  more  than  enough  for  the 
purpose.  I  believe  that  wells  are  polluted 


125 

by  filth  flowing  through  porous  strata  and 
rock-fissures,  not  by  filth  that  has  once- 
been  fairly  absorbed  by  the  soil. 

The  quotation  from  Lissauer  applies  to 
excessive  flooding,  not  to  the  limited  dis- 
charge of  sub-irrigation  drains.  Para- 
graph (1)  seems  not  opposed  to  my  theory; 
(2)  applies  obviously  to  much  greater 
flooding  than  is  contemplated,  as  the  efflu- 
ent water  at  Merthyr  Tydvil  (less  than  one- 
tenth  as  much  land  — loose  and  gravelly  at 
that — as  I  have  recommended  being  used 
per  head)  remains  pure  after  the  filter-bed 
has  been  used  for  several  years.  (3)  All 
soils  can  be  irrigated  (with  sewage!),  but 
heavy  soils  may  not  be  so  profitably  irriga- 
ted because  they  part  with  their  water  so- 
largely  by  evaporation,  and  thus  lose  heat. 
(4)  We  do  not  propose  to  tax  the  one-hun- 
dredth part  of  the  "maximum  power  of 
absorption."  (5)  The  limitation  of  our  vol- 
ume makes  this  inapplicable  to  the  discus- 
sion. Of  course  the  system  of  sub-irriga- 
tion has  its  limitations,  but  it  is  a  vast  step 
ahead  of  any  cesspool  system. 

If  the  experience  of  the  world  is  of  any 


126 

value,  it  is  proven  that  the  tight  cesspool, 
which  Mr.  Bayles  advocates,  conserves 
filth  under  the  conditons  which  are  the 
most  "  favorable  to  the  exercise  of  its 
power  for  mischief.'7  Even  eternal  vigil- 
ance will  not  stop  the  putrefaction  of  its 
contents.  With  some  experience  and  ob- 
servation in  such  matters,  I  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  express  the  opinion  that  the  sub- 
irrigation  system  may  be  more  nearly  left 
to  itself  than  any  other  I  know  about. 

I  can  only  answer  Mr.  Towne's  question 
by  repeating  the  opinion  before  given — that 
the  sub-irrigation  system  is  much  the  sim- 
plest, the  safest,  and  the  best  j  and  that  its 
cost  is  really  trifling,  even  where  the  water 
from  the  kitchen  sink,  and  the  laundry 
trays  in  the  cellar,  has  to  be  lifted  with  a 
pump  to  the  level  of  the  drains.  He  ac- 
cepts, apparently,  without  question,  the 
wrongly  based  objections  of  Mr.  Bayles, 
and  says,  "  I  think  it  must  be  conceded 
that  this  system  cannot  be  extensively  re- 
lied on  for  use  on  private  grounds,  of 
small  extent,  particularly  in  our  Northern 
States."  To  offset  this,  I  can  point  to  in- 


127 

stances  of  success  on  such  grounds  in  such 
localities,  especially  to  my  own,  which  has 
worked  perfectly,  Winter  and  Summer, 
for  seven  years.  I  have  never  heard 
of  a  case  of  failure.  These  examples, 
supported  by  the  arguments  give  above, 
must  sustain  the  claims  of  the  sub-irriga- 
tion disposal  of  liquid  house  wastes,  or 
those  claims  cannot  be  sustained  by  my 
advocacy. 

Since  writing  the  above  I  have  found 
in  an  editorial  of  the  Agricultural  Gazette 
(London),  of  March  19,  the  following  : 

"  The  astonishing  power  of  an  aerated 
and  porous  soil  and  sub-soil  (our  knowl- 
edge of  which  we  owe  to  Dr.  Frankland) 
may  be  trusted  a  great  deal  more  than  en- 
gineers appear  to  trust  it.  Mr.  Norman 
Bazalgette  labored  hard  the  other  evening 
to  prove  that  Merthyr  filter-beds  had  done 
nothing  like  the  work  which  Dr.  Frankland 
had  declared  them  capable  of  doing.  But 
the  answer  to  his  criticism,  which  was 
given  in  the  subsequent  discussion,  seemed 
to  us  complete ;  and  as  upon  it  rests  the 
safety  of  the  cheaper  method  which  in  the 


128 

agricultural  interest  we  recommend,  we 
reproduce  it  here. 

"At  the  close  of  his  clear  and  conclusive 
argument  on  this  subject,  Dr.  Frankland 
put  the  matter  thus:  'I  have  analyzed  the 
effluent  water  from  the  Merthyr  filter-beds 
when  only  230  people  drained  on  to  them 
per  acre,  and  again  when  500,  and  when 
1,250  people  were  draining  on  to  them 
per  acre;  and  deducting  and  discounting 
the  dilution  by  the  subsoil  water,  in  the  first 
case  it  was  thirty  times  as  clean  and  as 
pure  as  it  needed  to  be;  in  the  second 
cases  it  was  purified  seventeen  times  more 
than  enough ;  and  in  the  last  case,  it  was 
still  three  or  four  times  purer  than  was 
necessary.  Is  it  unreasonable,  then,  to  be- 
lieve that  those  filter-beds  could  have 
cleansed  sufficiently  or  even  more  than 
enough  the  sewage  of  three  or  four  times 
as  many  as  the  greatest  of  these  numbers, 
if  only  the  work  had  been  given  them  to 
do. 

"  Now  we  contend  that  the  work  was 
given  them  to  do,  and  that  they  did  it." 
Then  follows  an  explanation  of  the  irreg- 


129 

ular  distribution  of  the  sewage  over  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  ground,  showing  that 
although  each  area  of  about  one  acre  re- 
ceived its  due  proportion  of  sewage,  "  the 
quarter  of  the  plat  which  was  next  to  the 
carrier  had  its  full  work  to  do  from  the 
first  and  till  the  last  of  its  six  hours'  period  j 
but  it  often  was  not  till  two  or  three  hours 
had  elapsed,  that  the  quarter  farthest  from 
the  feeder  was  even  fairly  wetted.  And 
thus  it  was  that  while  it  may  be  true 
enough,  that  it  was  only  the  sewage  of 
20,000  people  that  was  dealt  with  by  the 
twenty  acres  of  filter-bed  at  Troedyrhiew 
— being  at  the  rate  of  1000  people  per  acre 
— yet  at  least  one-half,  probably  much  more 
than  one-half,  of  that  beautifully  purified 
effluent  water  must  have  come  from  areas 
of  the  filter-bed,  which  were  being  watered 
at  the  rate  of  2,000,  3,000,  or  4,000  people 
per  acre." 

My  recommendation  for  the  use  of  soil 
for  the  purification  of  household  sewage 
was  based  on  a  calculation  of  only  175 
people  per  acre.  It  is  proper  to  explain 
that  when  Dr.  Franklin  says,  that  the 


130 

water  was  made  "  thirty  times  as  clean 
and  pure  as  it  needed  to  be/'  he  means 
thirty  times  purer  than  the  Rivers'  Pollu- 
tion Commissioners'  standard  of  fair  po- 
table water. 

W. 


v;- 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


B    000010963     7 


SOUTHERN  BRANCH, 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA, 

LIBRARY, 

1.0S  ANGELES,  CALIF. 


